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UNIVERSAL SPIRITUALISM 



UNIVERSAL 
SPIRITUAUSM 

^pirtoCommmtion in ail ageg 
among ail Rations 

By W. J. COLVILLE 

Author of" Old and New Psychology," " Spirit- 
ual Science of Health and Healing," " Life and 
Power From Health Within," Etc., Etc., Etc. 




R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 
1 8 East Seventeenth Street : New York 



vO 



*\ 










LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Twe Copies Received 

FEB 23 1 90f 

, Copyright Entry t 

CLASS ft XXcNo, 
COPY B. 






Copyright, 1906 

By 

R. F. FENNO & COMPANY 



Universal Spiritualism 



Contents 



CHAP. 

Introduction ...... 

Autobiography of W. J. Colville 

I. The Question of Spirit Identity 

II. Bird's-Eye View of Ancient and Modern 
Spiritual Philosophy . . . 

III. Differing Aspects of Spiritual Philosophy 

— the Righteous Claims of Egoism and of 
Altruism ..... 

IV. The Spiritual Faith of Ancient Egypt 

V. Influence of Egyptian Thought on Jewish 
Views of Immortality 

VI. The Jewish Kabala — Its Teachings Concern 
ing Immortality .... 

VII. Persian Theories of the Soul and Its Des 
tination ..... 

VIII. Greek and Roman Views of a Future Life 

IX. Hindu Conceptions of the Soul and Its Im 

MORTALITY ..... 

X. Vedanta Philosophy .... 

XI. Scandinavian Beliefs Concerning the Spirit 
ual Universe ..... 

XII. Etruscan Views of the Future Life . 

XIII. Spiritual Conceptions in China and Japan 

XIV. Mohammedan Views of the Soul and Its 

Destiny ..... 



page 

7 

'5 

39 

57 

67 

78 

86 

95 

106 
123 

139 

157 

178 

187 
192 

203 



Contents 



CHAP. PAGE 

XV. Ancient Jewish and Early Christian Ideas 

of the Soul and of Spirit-Communion . 215 

XVI. Psychical Researches in Modern Europe . 232 

XVII. Sleep as an Educator — Its Spiritual Pur- 
pose and Value ..... 244 

XVIII. Spiritual Mediumship — Reasonable Views 
of Mediumship Contrasted with Popular 
Fallacies Concerning It . . .261 

XIX. The Spirit World— as Seen and Described 

by One Who has Visited It Frequently, 268 

XX. Telepathy and Clairvoyance . . . 280 

XXI. Spiritualism in All Lands and Times . 295 

XXII. Dr. J. M. Peebles on the Nature and Pre- 

existence of the Soul . . . .326 

XXIII. Conclusion — Striking Incidents Related 

by Well-Known Witnesses . . . 345 



Introduction 

In appearing once more before the public in a treatise 
undertaking to trace the history of human faith in immor- 
tality, and to present multiplied evidences which have led 
millions of intelligent people in all lands and ages to ac- 
cept a spiritual philosophy of human existence, the writer 
is fully aware that much of the ground traversed in the fol- 
lowing pages will be old to many but startlingly new to 
some. The present marvelous century is indubitably a 
period in which every religious doctrine and philosophical 
belief is being resolutely hunted to its source, and because 
such is the temper of the age there has arisen a numerous 
and influential cult among us, the members of which un- 
hesitatingly claim that modern scientific students far from 
supporting materialistic conclusions such as Prof. Haeckel 
and other distinguished European " Monists " have 
reached, are hourly accumulating fresh proofs of the reality 
of our spiritual being and becoming increasingly assured 
that we are spiritual entities clothed for a brief while in 
mortal garments (or operating temporarily with material 
instruments) but destined ourselves to live on and work on 
through measureless ages of eternity, an ever widening 
vista of actualizable possibilities continuously opening be- 
fore us. 

In selecting the title for the present volume the author 
has been actuated by a twofold motive ; first, to give to 
the public a work which describes its nature on its title- 
page. Second, to present as far as possible within neces- 
sarily limited space, the foundation upon which an edifice 

7 



8 Introduction 

of rational philosophic Spiritualism can in these days be 
upr eared. 

Much that passes for religion may be hypocrisy, much 
that is dignified with the name of science may be but 
transitory speculation, yet science and religion live, thrive 
and grow despite all mistakes and errors. Likewise does 
Spiritualism outlive and triumph over every outward at- 
tack and every inward weakness, so much so that though the 
very word has often been considered a reproach, not a 
year passes but a fresh list of noble and influential names 
have to be added to the illustrious company of Spiritualists. 

There are in reality but three conceivable philosophies, 
viz . : Spiritualism, Materialism, Agnosticism. Concerning 
the latter, it may well be said in the words of the learned and 
thoughtful Prof. Felix Adler, of Ethical Culture fame, " Ag- 
nosticism is no finality. ' ' Materialism is practically dead in 
scientific circles, and it has never been able to claim such 
renowned philosophers as Herbert Spencer, Thos. Huxley 
or any others among the exceptionally brilliant men of 
science and of letters who made the 19th century illustrious. 

Spiritualism, broadly interpreted and divested of all ab- 
normal excrescences, is the only philosophy which has stood 
and still continues to stand the searching test of impartial 
scrutiny. Idle is it to point to the farces and follies per- 
petrated in its name, these, deplorable though they may be, 
detract nothing from the philosophy itself but only serve to 
exhibit the pitiable weaknesses of undeveloped types of hu- 
man character. No sensible person rejects gold or any 
precious metal because it is taken out of the earth mixed 
with alloy. Even as gold is sifted from all which accom- 
panies it before being transferred to the mint for coinage 
or employed in the manufacture of articles of worth and 



ti_ 



Introduction 9 

beauty, so must the grandest, noblest, most inspiring and 
consoling educative system of philosophy of which the hu- 
man race has ever conceived, be stripped of all foreign 
matter that accompanies it before being transferred to its 
mint for coinage or employed in the manufacture of articles 
of mental worth and beauty, so must this grandest, noblest, 
most inspiring and educating system of philosophy of 
which the human race has ever conceived, be stripped of 
all accretions and unbeautiful surroundings and accepted 
only in so far as it commends itself to reason and to intui- 
tion, the two chief guides of humanity. 

As the reader journeys in the following chapters from 
period to period, and from clime to clime, from ancient 
Egypt and India to modern Britain and America, one dom- 
inating conviction must lay hold upon the mind of every 
impartial student and that a conviction no less than the 
stupendous thought that the human race has sought and 
found convincing evidences of its immortality. 

The great importance of the modern Spiritualistic move- 
ment, even though it be dated only from 1848, is too vast 
to be estimated, and it is beyond dispute that in conse- 
quence of marvelous and utterly unexpected occurrences at 
Hydesville in New York State and elsewhere in America 
during that memorable year, and in the momentous years 
which immediately followed, a complete revolution was 
started in the minds, not only of the American, but very 
shortly after, of European populations. 

Liberal religious views were indeed prevalent in many 
distinguished circles before the world was thrilled by the 
audacious declaration that the gates were not only ajar, 
but in many instances wide open, between the two states 
of existence we are still accustomed to call two worlds. 



io Introduction 

This tremendous affirmation ought not to have surprised 
Bible students or professing Christians of any denomina- 
tion, for nothing is more self-evident than that the Hebrew 
and Greek, 1 in common with all other venerated Scriptures, 
distinctly proclaim the constant fact of the intercommunion 
of earth with spirit-spheres. But every one who is the 
least acquainted with the sad tale of ecclesiastical bigotry 
and blindness knows that organized religious parties fought 
desperately against the new revelation, thereby greatly 
weakening their own hold upon the masses and laying the 
foundation for vigorous iconoclastic onslaughts upon creeds 
and churches and diverting the tide of inspiration very 
largely away from all recognized denominational institu- 
tions. 

The early history of modern Spiritualism has been copi- 
ously recorded in the standard works of Emma Hardinge 
Britten and other faithful chroniclers of the trials, hard- 
ships, defeats and victories of the stalwart pioneers who 
often literally took their lives in their hands to proclaim 
the new gospel which was to them more precious than 
their earthly all. The work of the magnificently coura- 
geous men and women who stood in the front rank of the 
Spiritualistic propaganda during its earlier decades on both 
sides of the Atlantic and also at the Antipodes, can never 
be overestimated. Some of those zealous champions of 
spiritual free thought may have been at times over intrepid 
and occasionally indiscreet, but they did their work heroic- 
ally, and the light they braved everything to kindle and 
to sustain will not easily be extinguished. 

In later years other movements, not Spiritualistic in 
name, have attained and received much attention and 
have unquestionably succeeded to a large extent in enlist- 



Introduction 1 1 

ing the sympathy and arousing the interest of many intel- 
ligent persons to whom the name of Spiritualism was not 
attractive. 

The Theosophical Society founded in New York in 
1875 an d started by prominent Spiritualists, — for such 
Col. Olcott and Mme. Blavatsky undoubtedly were — 
drifted at one time into seeming antagonism to the cen- 
tral doctrine of Spirit communion, but has always been in 
reality an upholder of spiritual philosophy against material- 
ism and is now, in the persons of its most representative 
leaders, throwing much light, through study and practice 
of clairvoyance in particular, upon the actual condition of 
the Spirit world which interpenetrates as well as encircles 
this material globe. 

The popular New Thought movement, though not 
avowedly Spiritualistic in any pronounced degree, has 
always numbered among its leading exponents distin- 
guished men and women whose public writings leave no 
doubt as to their knowledge of the main facts for which 
all Spiritualists are steadfastly contending. The chequered 
history of the Spiritualistic movement all over the world 
has presented many bright and more than a few dark 
features and it is not seemingly possible to unify all Spirit- 
ualists or to bring them into substantial accord any further 
than to acknowledge the one great essential of spiritual 
intercommunion. 

It is not necessarily regrettable that no uniformity seems 
possible on anything like an extensive scale because it is 
the obvious mission of the great modern spiritual revela- 
tion to break the fetters of assumed authority and set the 
individual spirit free. The idiosyncrasies of many indi- 
viduals and the dubious character of much alleged phe- 



1 2 Introduction 

nomena, together with the unsatisfactory nature of many 
purported spirit communications, continues to present a 
series of serious difficulties in the path of many conscien- 
tious enquirers and investigators, and with the rapidly 
spreading acknowledgment of limitless telepathy the old 
simple confidence in direct communion with our departed 
friends and kindred has been in many quarters greatly 
shaken. 

The writings of the noted Prof. T. J. Hudson, whose 
name will always be associated with the "Two minds" 
theory, have been erroneously construed by many readers as 
undermining the fact of Spirit communion when in reality 
no evidences of telepathy can possibly do other than 
strengthen reasonable confidence therein. The enormous 
interest taken at present in what is termed Psychical Re- 
search is only interest in Spiritualism under a slightly 
different name, this every impartial student must admit, 
especially after perusing that monumental work by the 
famous F. W. H. Myers entitled "Human Personality — 
its survival of bodily death." A still more recent work 
by Prof. Hyslop of Columbia University, entitled " Science 
and a Future Life," and indeed a perfect host of volumes 
by more or less distinguished authors, written in many 
different languages and all testifying to the constantly 
accumulating proofs of spirit intercourse demonstrated in 
a great variety of ways and under a vast variety of con- 
ditions, but serve to further illustrate our main position. 

Though the old theory of the Satanic origin of spirit 
communications is no longer preached as formerly, there 
are still those among us who see the devil in everything 
which seems supernormal that does not conform with anti- 
quated, and indeed barbaric, notions of the unseen uni- 



Introduction 13 

verse, and apart from old school theologians who continue 
to employ old-fashioned terminology there are quite a 
considerable number of modern writers who do not hesi- 
tate to descant upon the perils attending mediumship and 
the dangerous ground upon which all are treading who 
venture to seek to lift up the veil which divides mundane 
from supra-mundane existence. 

Tennyson's warning in his beautiful lines entitled " The 
Angel Guest," a choice excerpt from "In Memoriam," 
are indeed applicable to all who would seek to peer behind 
the mystic curtain and commune with beings ordinarily 
invisible from the earthly standpoint. The poet truly sings : 

11 How pure in heart and sound in head 
With what divine affections bold 
Should be the man whose thoughts would hold 
An hour's communion with the dead." 

These stirring lines, and the three verses which follow, 
were sung at a great meeting in Brighton, England's most 
famous seaside resort, on the evening of May 24, 1874, 
when the writer of these pages, then an inquisitive child, 
was attracted to an "inspirational oration" delivered by 
Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond (then Mrs. Tappan) at a time 
when Spiritualism was exciting great attention in Great 
Britain. 

That wonderfully gifted speaker in some mysterious way, 
while addressing an audience of 1,500 people, was an in- 
strument in the hands of the unseen for opening the flood- 
gates of illumination for this curious child, who was imme- 
diately fascinated by the grace and dignity of the orator 
and deeply impressed with the mighty import of the in- 
spired and inspiring message delivered so impressively in 
so unique a manner. Years have come and gone and the 



14 Introduction 

wondering child has grown to be a widely traveled lecturer 
and author, but never unmindful of the impetus received 
on that ever-to-be-remembered evening. 

In the autobiographical narrative which the writer has 
been importuned to incorporate in this volume, personal 
experiences are necessarily introduced to illustrate the 
propositions which it is desired to elucidate and to unfold. 
It has been almost impossible to refer the reader in all 
cases to authorities which would further sustain the facts 
related in the successive chapters of this book, but modera- 
tion as well as accuracy of statement has been the author's 
constant aim, and though conscious of many defects in 
style and limitations in subject matter, it is confidently 
hoped, and indeed expected, that this comparatively hum- 
ble contribution to the voluminous literature of Spiritual- 
ism will serve at least the useful purpose of providing at 
reasonable price, in not excessive compass, a textbook for 
enquirers and a work of ready reference for those who 
have neither time nor opportunity for searching massive 
records when desirous of taking a bird's-eye view of the 
spiritual conceptions and experiences of widely-scattered 
members of the human race. 

Lights and shadows have alike been dealt with, but the 
tone of this work is avowedly and intentionally optimistic. 
To liberalize thought, to increase fraternal feeling, to re- 
lieve the depression which overhangs the thought of pass- 
ing into the mysterious "unknown," and most of all to 
show how reasonable it is to have confidence in human 
immortality, have been among the prominent objects the 
author has held constantly in view. 

W. J. Colville. 

New York, igo6. 



Autobiography of W. J. Colville 



If I am to relate faithfully, even in barest outline, my 
experiences with " unseen helpers," I must go back to my 
very early childhood, when my * ' mediumship " originally 
declared itself. I was practically an orphan from birth. 
My mother passed to spirit life in my infancy and my 
father was called by important business to travel in lands 
remote from England, where I was left in charge of a 
guardian. My childhood was singularly unchildlike, as I 
was separated from children altogether, and compelled to 
associate exclusively with persons of thoroughly mature 
age. 

How I first came to see my mother clairvoyantly I do 
not know, but I distinctly remember becoming vividly 
conscious at frequent intervals of the gentle, loving pres- 
ence of a beautiful young woman, who invariably appeared 
to my vision gracefully attired in light garments of singular 
beauty. The head of this charming lady was adorned 
with golden ringlets ; her eyes were intensely blue ; she 
was tall and of rather slender build, and manifested many 
attributes of almost ideal womanhood. I cannot recall to 
mind any occasion when this lady spoke to me as one ordi- 
nary human being on earth converses with another, but I 
distinctly recollect that when I saw her most plainly and. 
felt her presence most distinctly, I was intensely conscious 
of information flowing into me. I can only liken my ex- 

*5 



i6 Autobiography of W. J. Colville 

perience to some memorable statements of Swedenborg 
concerning influx of knowledge into the interiors of human 
understanding. 

I should probably never in those early days have thought 
of such a problem as clairvoyance, had it not been for the 
surprising fact that what I saw perfectly other people did 
not see at all. I was first led to realize the unusual char- 
acter of my vision when I mentioned the presence of the 
"beautiful lady in white " to two persons who were with 
me when I saw her very distinctly, and they declared that 
we three were the only occupants of the apartment. The 
mystery of the fourth inmate was for me greatly intensified 
when it appeared to me that the other two persons, besides 
her and myself, could pass through her and she through 
them, while they appeared completely unconscious of each 
other's presence. An elderly lady, with whom I was liv- 
ing, who was a devoted Church woman, summed up all my 
singular visions, when I related them to her, in the follow- 
ing words : " Well, I can't account for it, but it must 
be the work of either God or Satan." Though not many 
months over five years of age at the time to which I am 
now referring, I had already heard Satan called the " father 
of lies " and had also been taught that truth belonged to 
God and came from heaven ; so my youthful intellect was 
not perturbed with dread of any power of darkness, as I 
found that all the information which flowed into me when 
this beautiful spiritual being manifested to me was correct 
in every particular. I was, therefore, quite content to be- 
lieve, with simple faith supported by reasoning, that my 
dear mother was watching over me as a guardian spirit. 
I often heard of guardian angels, and I was sometimes 
taken to a children's service in a church where a favorite 



Autobiography of W. J. Colville 17 

hymn before the catechising began with the following in- 
vocation : 

" Dear angel ever at my side ! 
How loving must thou be 
To leave thy home in heaven to guard 
A little child like me." 

Instead of conjecturing angels as well-nigh incompre- 
hensible beings belonging to an order in the creation en- 
tirely different from ourselves, I rested satisfied with the 
simple, reasonable conviction that the messenger from un- 
seen spheres who watched over me most intimately, was the 
dear mother whose physical presence had been withdrawn 
from earth long before I had reached an age when I could 
have consciously appreciated it. I do not forget the 
strange shock I felt when some one said to me : " It is im- 
possible that you should see your mother j you have no 
mother; she is dead." Such vulgar, brutal words made 
no other impression on me than to set me thinking along 
psychic lines, far more often pursued by little children than 
adults generally suppose. 

It must be borne in mind that I was an isolated and 
often a lonely child, thrown very largely upon my resources 
for amusement and enjoyment. This circumstance may 
suffice to suggest instructive thoughts regarding conditions 
singularly favorable to mediumistic development. Is me- 
diumship a gift or a natural endowment ? is a query often 
raised. To answer this inquiry it is surely necessary to re- 
call the two distinct senses in which the word " gift " is com- 
monly employed. We speak of natural gifts, of the uni- 
versal gifts of God to humanity, as well as of particular be- 
stowments vouchsafed to those who are sometimes segre- 



18 Autobiography of W. J. Colville 

gated in our philosophy from the "common herd," and des- 
ignated a " chosen few." Having used the term " clairvoy- 
ance" in connection with my own earliest spiritual experi- 
ences, I wish to define it in my own case as applying to ex- 
tended vision of three distinctly different, though closely 
allied, varieties. The first evidence of my own clear vision, 
which came to me so spontaneously and unexpectedly that 
for a considerable season it caused me no astonishment 
whatever, related to beholding a form of real, consistent 
substantiality, existing, on another plane of being than the 

. one usually termed terrestrial. . This form was completely 
and symmetrically human in every detail of outline, and 
was attired in artistic dress, not foreign to ordinary worldly 

* convention, but vastly more beautiful and graceful than 
the customary mortal dress fashionable in the sixties of the 
nineteenth century, which included the crinoline and the 
chignon. The second evidence of clairvoyance did not 
refer to sight, even on the psychic or astral plane, as sight 
is ordinarily understood, but to mental enlightenment or in- 
tellectual illumination, and this, not only of a general but 
also of a particular character, as the knowledge which en- 
tered into my understanding related not only to topics of 
usual information, but went deeply and precisely into 
manifold details of private family history, and included 
many revelations which brought great consternation to the 
hearers when I reported my experiences, seeing that the 
people among whom I was being reared were very desirous 
of hiding from me many facts connected with my parents 
of which my spirit mother undoubtedly wished me to be- 
come aware. The third feature in my clairvoyance was 
the actual predicting of coming events, and I use the term 
coming " in the precisest possible manner for the very 



a 



Autobiography of VV. J. Colville 19 

events I was led to foretell had, in many instances, actually 
occurred in one sense, and were on their way to occurring 
in yet another. A single example will illustrate. 

My grandmother's sister in Lincolnshire had decided to 
visit Sussex, but had not communicated her intention to 
any one, though her mind was fully made up. Though I 
had never seen my great-aunt, and had rarely heard her 
mentioned, I distinctly saw her in the house where I was 
then living, and accurately described her appearance, even 
to the strings of the cap which she actually wore a few 
weeks later when paying her sister a visit. Two questions 
naturally arise at this point : First, how is it that we can 
see people who may be thinking of us, or perhaps only of a 
place we are inhabiting, when they are not consciously or 
deliberately projecting their thought, or an astral likeness 
of themselves, to us ? Second, how is it that we see articles 
of wearing apparel which those persons may not be actually 
wearing at the time when we behold them ? The follow- 
ing reply may serve to elucidate, at least in part, the fore- 
going mystery. When Herbert Spencer many years ago 
criticised somewhat adversely the notion of clothing as per- 
taining to the spirit world, he evidently overlooked a very 
important consideration, to the effect that our clothing is all 
mentally designed before it can be physically confected. 
A new fashion in dress is impossible except as an outcome 
of a new mental concept of apparel. Not only Sweden- 
borg, but Shakespeare also, clearly illustrates the close con- 
nection which must ever logically exist between the wearer 
and the garment worn ; and in no case do we find the sug- 
gestive doctrine more clearly taught by inference than in 
the play of " Hamlet," where the father of the Prince of 
Denmark appears in spirit, clad in armor, at the very time 



20 Autobiography of W. J. Colville 

when he is seeking to inspire his son to make war against 
an uncle who has incurred the fierce displeasure of the dis- 
carnate king. Not only do we clothe ourselves physically 
in such raiment as becomes our immediate mental state, 
but we often unconsciously supply, gratuitously, portraits 
of ourselves doing things we intend to do, things, indeed, 
which we have spiritually already done, and which we shall 
certainly ultimate materially unless our plans are unexpect- 
edly frustrated. It generally simplifies the mystery of prog- 
nostication if we do but consider that seership is a faculty 
which enables a seer or seeress to actually behold what exists 
on a plane of ultimation prior to the physical. 

As I grew from childhood to rather riper age, and in the 
• meantime attended schools and became interested in many 
external pursuits and objects, my singularly spontaneous 
mediumship became less prominent, and with the excep- 
tion of an occasional prophetic dream of rare lucidity, 
which always came as a needed warning, I gradually drifted 
into a more prosaic state of life, from which I was suddenly 
aroused by the presence of the world-renowned Cora L. V. 
Richmond (then Mrs. Tappan) in England during the 
seventies of the last century. When I was nearly fourteen 
years of age, and a member of a church choir, Mrs. Tap- 
pan greatly excited the population of Brighton, where I 
was then residing, by her marvelous discourses and poems, 
and singularly erudite replies to all kinds of questions, 
which she claimed were not due to her own erudition, of 
which she made no boast and to which she laid no claim, 
but to the action through her instrumentality of a band of 
guides who were ready to speak through her whenever 
their services were in demand. May 24th, 1874, was, in- 
deed, an eventful day in my history, for though my public 



Autobiography of W. J. Colville 21 

career as a lecturer and globe-trotter did not begin till 
nearly three years later, it was on the evening of that beau- 
tiful Whit-Sunday that I experienced the first thrill of con- 
sciousness that it was my principal lifework to travel nearly 
all over the earth, guided by unseen but not unknown in- 
spirers, who would carry me safely over all tempestuous 
oceans and protect me from all dangers by land if I would 
but be faithful to the mission entrusted to me by wise and 
kindly helpers. I have always greatly disliked the word 
" control," and I dislike it still, for in my ears it savors of 
coercion, and I have never been coerced by my inspirers, 
who have ever proved themselves faithful teachers, coun- 
selors, and guides — veritable "invisible helpers," to use 
Leadbeater's felicitous expression, a title we may well ap- 
ply to those numberless assistants who render multifold serv- 
ices to us of which we are often quite unconscious, but 
from which we derive inestimable benefit. 

The record of my original introduction to the work of 
inspirational speaking is now an oft-told tale ; in brief, I 
may sum it up as follows : When I was walking home 
after greatly enjoying Mrs. Tappan's wonderful eloquence, 
I registered a vow that if any good and wise intelligences 
in the unseen state would inspire me as they were wont to 
inspire the marvelous lady who styled herself their " in- 
strument," I would most gladly take service with them and 
go whithersoever their counsels led me. I earnestly de- 
sired and confidently expected that inspiration would come 
to me if it were genuine at all, and come it did that very 
evening and within an hour from the time when I invoked 
it. Had no obstacles been placed in my way, I should 
have darted forth rneteorically as a speaker before my four- 
teenth birth anniversary, but my legal guardian refused to 



22 Autobiography of W. J. Colville 

grant permission until I was at least two years older, though 
she did not prevent my occasionally appearing at private 
gatherings, nor was she able to deprive me of some won- 
derful experiences of mesmeric or hypnotic character, 
which opened my eyes in my early teens to many of the 
marvels of psychology which are now demanding and receiv- 
ing attention from distinguished savants the wide world 
over. 

Hypnotism and its dangers, like Spiritualism and its 
dangers, is now being discussed at every turn, and I am 
often greatly interested to hear discussions on these re- 
condite themes, when the debaters are people of experi- 
ence, but whose experiences have been largely unlike my 
own. I do not presume to settle any question for my 
neighbors, I merely speak in the first person singular when 
I declare that I was never hypnotized against or even with- 
out the full consent of my own will ; and as spiritualistic 
literature abounds with references to the virtual identity of 
hypnotic influence with spirit control, I deem it advisable 
to bear personal testimony in this connection. Shortly 
after my discovery that I could speak inspirationally, and 
even be spoken through by an unseen intelligence, to 
whose words, uttered through my lips, I could attend as a 
quiet, interested listener, I made the acquaintance of a 
brilliant young nobleman who was both an operatic singer 
and a practicing psychologist. This young "star" was 
introduced to me as desiring to conduct some delicate 
mesmeric experiments for which he needed the services of 
a lucide, or natural clairvoyant ; or failing to discover 
any one who would entirely answer to the above descrip- 
tion, he considered it highly probable that his experimen- 
tation would be successful if he could meet a sensitive 



Autobiography of W. J. Colville 23 

young person who was thoroughly willing to yield to his 
suggestive influence. My first ejaculation when the sub- 
ject was broached to me that I might serve for the experi- 
ments, was " I should be delighted, and feel sure they will 
be successful." Though all the experiments were con- 
ducted in strict privacy, so far as the general public were 
concerned, many distinguished persons high in the learned 
professions took active part in many of the most satis- 
factory of them. It is not usually supposed, at least by 
the uninitiated into psychic mysteries, that the words 
passive and negative are quite as correctly qualified by the 
terms wilfully and willingly as are positive and active. 
We are frequently told that mediumship is impossible 
without passivity, and such is doubtless the case, but vol- 
untary rather than involuntary passivity or negativity con- 
duces to the most reliable results. Operator and subject 
are terms of double import, but such terms as sender and 
receiver or transmitter and recipient are clearly not open 
to valid objection, seeing that they in no way imply 
enforced surrender of one individual to another. During 
the nearly three years which intervened between my first 
insight into my capabilities as an inspired lecturer and my 
debut before a London audience, I had many opportuni- 
ties for witnessing extraordinary phenomena, as I became 
well acquainted with many prominent Spiritualists, who 
treated me with great kindness and consideration and 
placed many exceptional advantages at my disposal for 
witnessing manifestations of all varieties. Some of these 
appealed strongly to me, others did not. I had many 
opportunities for sitting in circles with Williams, Heme, 
Monck, Eglinton, and other extraordinary mediums, who, 
at about that time, were either in the inception or at the 



24 Autobiography of W. J. Colville 

zenith of their fame. Though I was told repeatedly that 
I was a physical medium, and though I sat in many seances 
where tables moved and furniture in general behaved 
grotesquely, I never knowingly officiated as a physical 
medium, though planchette has worked for me repeatedly 
and automatic writing has been often with me quite an 
every-day occurrence. During the greater part of 1877-8, 
I was privileged to investigate the evidences of phenomenal 
Spiritualism all over England. The most private gather- 
ings were open to me, and I was times without number 
privileged to sit with the most distinguished mediums 
under thoroughly satisfactory test conditions ; but though 
I saw enough to convince me a thousand times over that 
some mysterious occult force was operating, and the 
spiritualistic hypothesis always seemed to me more reason- 
able than any other, I do not think, with my peculiar and 
naturally sceptical cast of mind, that I could ever have 
been completely convinced of the truth of spirit-com- 
munion had it not been for experiences of my own which 
absolutely forced me as a rational individual to accept the 
only sane conclusion. 

When I first took the platform I felt very much as I 
had often felt in more private places when voluntarily 
obeying the silently expressed dictation of the talented 
psychologist who could transmit to and through me any 
information he desired to convey when I was in a suscep- 
tible condition ; but though he declared that I was perfectly 
his "subject," and I was quite willing to be such, I could 
not be induced by any professional mesmerist, or practic- 
ing physician, who was engaged in the conduct of hypnotic 
experiments, to receive or transmit anything, simply be- 
cause I did not choose to make myself passive or sus- 



Autobiography of W. J. Colville 25 

ceptible. I remember well sitting on the platform in old 
Doughty Hall (a Masonic edifice no longer in existence) 
on Sunday evening, March 4th, 1877, and gazing out upon 
a large concourse of people gathered to hear the " kitten 
orator," as I had been called because of my youth, dis- 
course on a subject to be selected by their own vote. A 
hymn was sung to open a semi-religious service, and then 
I rose and offered a prayer, the words of which formed 
themselves in my mouth without forethought or conscious 
volition of my own. After a second hymn the presiding 
officer — the long celebrated James Burns, editor of the 
Medium and Daybreak — announced in my hearing that 
the youthful occupant of the platform was prepared to 
discourse under inspiration on any theme the audience 
might think proper to select. I heard this without the 
slightest internal trepidation. I had become tense, callous, 
self-assured, but completely confident that an intelligence 
beyond my normal own would certainly render me entirely 
equal to the occasion. A subject was quickly decided 
upon by show of hands, and I rose to lecture. I spoke 
unfalteringly for fully an hour, and resumed my seat unex- 
cited and unfatigued. A third hymn was sung, and then 
Mr. Burns called upon the audience to mention topics for 
an impromptu poem. Three or four subjects were given, 
and no sooner was a decision reached by the chairman as 
to which topic had received the greatest show of hands, 
than I rose for the third and last time that evening, and 
heard myself reel off a number of verses as easily and 
fluently as though I had them well committed to memory, 
though I am certain they were nowhere in print, and I was 
listening to them for the first time. The report of that 
memorable meeting created a great sensation those many 



26 Autobiography of W. J. Colville 

years ago ; but events crowd thickly upon each other in 
these days, and a new generation has risen since I was a 
"youthful prodigy," "one of the marvels of the nine- 
teenth century," and much else, according to the news- 
papers, which I have long since forgotten. 

Immediately after my appearance in London I was 
called to all parts of England. I went as an inexperienced 
child to places rough and smooth, aristocratic and un- 
couth, clean and dirty, refined and vulgar, religious and 
atheistic; and wherever I went I found my unseen 
prompters ready to help me in all emergencies and to pilot 
me safely over many difficult and unpleasant places from 
which I should certainly have shrunk had I seen before- 
hand what awaited me. During the nineteen months of 
my touring as a lecturer in England, between March, 1877, 
and October, 1878, I certainly saw the world in a large 
number of its varied phases, and though many episodes in 
my career during that eventful period were extremely en- 
joyable, as I met kind and true friends almost everywhere, 
I could, without the slightest difficulty or exaggeration, un- 
fold many a tale which might amuse or startle more than 
it would edify the listeners. My constitution was not con- 
sidered naturally robust and I had to encounter many 
hardships from which many a stronger person would have 
fled in dismay, but though I cannot say that I quite en- 
joyed all the harsher features of my travels in all weathers 
to all sorts of places, instead of succumbing I grew steadily 
stronger physically as well as mentally, so that when I left 
England for America near the close of October, 1878, my 
constitution was quite equal to endure the strain of a sin- 
gularly tempestuous, though not dangerous, ocean passage 
and the rigors of a New England winter, to the severity 



Autobiography of W. J. Colville 27 

of which the fickle climate of Albion had never subjected 
me. I well remember my departure from Liverpool for 
unknown Boston across the wide Atlantic, whither I was 
journeying entirely alone save for the clearly distinguished 
presence of those faithful unseen helpers who never de- 
serted me. 

One of the clearest visions of my life attended me dur- 
ing the night prior to my departure from Liverpool. I fell 
asleep about 3 a. m., apparently as a result of fatigue fol- 
lowing upon intense excitement, but my seership asserted 
itself triumphantly in a manner which I was soon able to 
verify, even to the minutest detail. I saw myself stand- 
ing on a wide platform which was covered with thick red 
carpet, in a great hall, with high windows on either side. 
There was an organ in a choir gallery over the entrance 
to this audience room, and surmounting the rostrum on 
which I stood was a fine bust of the great New England 
preacher, the famous Theodore Parker. In that hall I saw 
a very fine audience numbering from 600 to 800 persons ; 
and in the midst of the assembly the dignified figure of 
Dr. J. M. Peebles, whom I had met in London some 
months previously, loomed large before me. The vision 
impressed itself indelibly on the tablet of my memory ; 
then I fell into a dreamless slumber, which continued until 
I was called to partake of my last breakfast in England for 
many a year to come. On reaching America I found that 
not only had my advent been heralded in the columns of 
the Banner of Light, the oldest spiritualistic paper in the 
world, but the friend who met me at the landing stage 
(Robert Cooper, of Eastbourne, England, who was then a 
prominent worker in America) informed me that Dr. 
Peebles had just completed a lecture engagement in Parker 



28 Autobiography of W. J. Colville 

Memorial Hall, and that he had announced me as his suc- 
cessor, the committee having accepted me for that large 
and prominent position on the good doctor's kindly rec- 
ommendation, though I was only eighteen years of age and 
entirely unknown to the directors of the Parker Hail lec- 
tureship. No sooner had I landed in America than I was 
quite at home on what was in no sense to me a foreign soil, 
for there I heard the same language spoken, and, with 
minor exceptions of no definite importance, soon discov- 
ered that England and America are at least first cousins, 
if not still nearer relatives. In Boston my work quickly 
grew apace ; then I was called to New York, Philadelphia, 
and other mighty cities, not excepting Chicago, where I 
filled Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond's platform for an ex- 
tended period, while she was filling an engagement in Bos- 
ton. Nearly five busy years had sped their course when, in 
1883, I found myself again in England, taking up afresh 
the work which I never laid down, but only temporarily 
suspended when I was led to cross the ocean and become 
a prominent worker in America. In 1884 I returned to 
the United States, and in 1885 again revisited England. 
During those years I accomplished a large amount of lit- 
erary work in addition to extensive traveling and constant 
lecturing. In 1886 I visited California for the first time, 
and spent five delightful months on the sunny Pacific slope, 
in which charming country I addressed daily audiences 
often numbering many hundred persons, and saw wonder- 
ful results from the practice of mental healing, of which I 
had by that time become, and of which I still am, an un- 
compromising, though I trust not a fanatical, advocate and 
exponent. 

At the close of a lecture which I delivered on a camp 



Autobiography of W. J. Colville 29 

ground bordering on Lake Merritt, adjacent to the city of 
Oakland, California, a lady who had long been a cripple 
handed her crutches to her husband, walked home, and 
did not resume the use of artificial support subsequently. 
This " miracle " of healing took place unconsciously to me, 
for I did not know there was a crippled woman in the as- 
sembly. I do not claim any part in the accomplishment 
of this marvel further than to declare that I was led to say 
before I concluded my exposition of the philosophy of 
healing, " You can use your limbs if you determine to use 
them, no matter how long they may have failed to serve 
you." I had no idea that I was addressing anybody in 
particular, and no member of the audience was more 
greatly astonished than myself when the "miracle" oc- 
curred. My explanation of it is twofold ; I firmly believe 
that there was an influence at work with that afflicted 
woman beyond my consciousness, and I feel also con- 
vinced that through her own auto-suggestive act she greatly 
facilitated her recovery. This case is thoroughly authen- 
ticated, and is now in print in the supplement to my old 
standard work, "The Spiritual Science of Health and 
Healing," under the heading, "Testimony of Mrs. Lily 
Bothwell." 

During that marvelous summer of 1886, which was in 
some respects the most astounding in my whole career, I 
received pressing invitations to visit Australia, from which 
far-distant land cablegrams came to me in quick succession. 
Nine years previously, at the very outset of my public work, 
I had been assured by my unseen preceptors that there was 
a great work for me to accomplish at the Antipodes after I 
had crossed America, and I may here mention that I had 
daringly announced in a London paper, in 1885, that I 



30 Autobiography of W. J. Colville 

was going to California in consequence of a communica- 
tion to that effect having been written through my hand 
when I had no earthly prospect of pursuing my westward 
way further than New York and Boston. My disappoint- 
ment was singularly keen when obstacles arose, mountain 
high, to forbid my leaving America on the completion of 
my first season in California. Duty called me back to 
Boston, and reluctantly I obeyed its call, with heavy heart 
and doubtful mind, for I was beginning to suspect that my 
unseen directors had been in some way thwarted in their 
plans for me, 1 having been solemnly assured by them that 
I had a mission to fulfil in Australasia ; and now after a 
way had plainly opened, the door had been ruthlessly 
closed and by no voluntary act of mine. On the way back 
across the American continent, when I paused to lecture in 
St. Louis, a message came to me with unmistakable clear- 
ness, "You are going to Australia and New Zealand but 
not just yet ! plans are ripening but not yet matured ; have 
perfect confidence in your inspirers, for though there is a 
seeming delay there has been no hitch in the arrangements." 
"But when shall I go?" I inquired eagerly. "We can- 
not tell you just now ; you would think the time too long 
did you foreknow its duration ; but rest content ; you are 
going, and you will fill a large place while you reside there." 
With that assurance I had to remain content, for I could 
receive nothing further concerning the Southern Hemis- 
phere though many directions were given me concerning 
my continuous work in the Northern. For ten years I saw 
nothing of England, and it was through the joint instru- 
mentality of Lady Caithness, Duchesse de Pomar, in Paris, 
and the special excursion of the World's Women's Chris- 
tian Temperance Union from New York, in June, 1895, 



Autobiography of W. J. Colville 31 

that I revisited Europe after ten years' unbroken residence 
in America. Those ten years had been very busy and 
highly eventful ones ; my singular experiences during their 
highly checkered course would fill many a bulky volume. 
I had scoured America from Canada to the Gulf of Mex- 
ico, and had met with warm receptions and enthusiastic 
audiences everywhere, though let no one imagine that a 
prominent public life means constant resting on a bed of 
roses; roses abound but thorns are often their intimate 
neighbors. I had produced a number of books, edited 
several periodicals, and contributed many hundreds of arti- 
cles to magazines, besides having written thousands of let- 
ters to newspapers, in addition to musical work, before I 
again set foot in England after my departure in 1885. 

What first led me to turn my attention back to Europe 
during the winter of 1894 was a psychic or telepathic in- 
cident well worth repeating, though it has been previously 
recorded. I well remember December 8th, 1894. On 
that day, between 2:30 fair and 3 p. m., I was seated at 
a desk in New York writing an article for a periodical 
which demanded copy at short notice. I was scribbling 
away at full speed, writing "against time" as literary 
hacks describe the process, when I was suddenly arrested 
by a vision of Lady Caithness, whom I had not seen for 
over nine years, seated at an escritoire in a sumptuously 
furnished boudoir, the most conspicuous feature of which 
was a magnificent painting covering nearly the whole of 
one side of the wall. This painting, which I saw dis- 
tinctly in my vision, represented "Jacob's Ladder," and I 
remember being particularly impressed with the singular 
beauty of the faces of the angels. Lady Caithness was 
elaborately dressed, and engaged in writing to me; it 



32 Autobiography of W. J. Colville 

seemed as though I could see ink falling from her pen on 
to the paper, while she informed me of many interesting 
events connected with the erection of her ducal palace, 
"Holyrood," to which she had recently moved from the 
fine old house in an older quarter of Paris, where she had 
hospitably entertained me and where I had held several 
conferences during 1884-5. The letter she was then 
writing embodied the request that I should without delay 
contribute an article for a periodical she was then editing, 
and it also expressed a fervent hope that I should see my 
way clear to accept her offer of an engagement to deliver 
a course of lectures at " Holyrood" during the ensuing 
June. For nearly thirty minutes this vision continued with 
me, and then, before the letter appeared finished, it sud- 
denly vanished, and I resumed my interrupted article. I 
went to Boston for Christmas, and while there, on Decem- 
ber 24th, I received, among other letters from New York, 
the identical letter from Lady Caithness, dated "Paris, 
December 8th," which I had beheld in my extremely 
vivid vision. In the course of the letter I learned that it 
was indited between 7:30 and 8:00 p. m., Paris time, 
which is five hours ahead of New York, and therefore the 
time coincidence was as nearly exact as it well could be. 

I have been repeatedly asked to describe the difference 
between telepathic and spiritual messages, and I frankly 
confess that I have rarely been able to clearly distinguish 
between them. And this statement suffices to introduce 
a consideration which is in my opinion a matter of great 
importance. Take, for example, Thomson Jay Hudson's 
much-discussed theory of two minds and two memories. 
Hudson avers that the subjective mind is the sole seat of 
the telepathic faculty, and in his three celebrated books, 



Autobiography of W. J. Colville 33 

"The Law of Psychic Phenomena," " A Scientific Dem- 
onstration of the Future Life," and " The Divine Pedigree 
of Man," he industriously undertakes to prove that, though 
the objective mind with its memory may perish with the 
decease of the physical organism, the subjective mind with 
its memory continues to live on in the life of immortality. 
If this premiss is sound, then Hudson's conclusion, as put 
forth in his curious article (February, 1902) in the Era, 
a well-known American monthly, is quite unwarranted ; 
and it is the height of absurdity on his part to declare 
that Spiritualists are "fighting in the last ditch," because 
recent experiments in the ample field of psychical dis- 
covery have abundantly proved the reliability of just such 
telepathy as Hudson and many others intelligently vouch 
for. My own experiences in numberless instances have 
completely satisfied me that in nine out of any average ten 
instances when psychic communion between friends can 
be clearly demonstrated, it is almost impossible to discrimi- 
nate exactly between a message received from a communi- 
cant on earth and from one who has passed to the other 
side of existence. What, indeed, is that "other side" 
but the side to which telepathy is indigenous ? And can 
we afford to be sure that when we are functioning tele- 
pathically we are not behaving just as we should continue 
to behave were we suddenly divested of our material envel- 
opes ? If the physical frame be but a sheath or vehicle 
of the abiding entity, which is the true individual, then 
all these fascinating evidences of thought transference, or 
mental telegraphy or telephony, accumulating everywhere, 
are but so many convincing proofs of the reality of our 
spiritual nature in the here and now, which will prove 
continuous in the hereafter and the future. Evidences of 



34 Autobiography of W. J. Colville 

psychic presence and spiritual guidance having attended 
ray steps from infancy, I cannot specialize any particular 
season when I have enjoyed the greatest number of dis- 
tinct proofs of super- terrestrial guidance, but such have 
always been most distinct and multiple when the need for 
them has been greatest. 

I will now select, almost at random, a few notably 
striking instances of warning, guidance, and simply inter- 
esting seership, which stand forth prominently in my recol- 
lection as my thoughts revert to days gone by. 

Once in California, when I had arranged to lecture in a 
theatre in Los Angeles while I was yet in San Francisco, I 
purchased a ticket and secured a berth on a steamer leav- 
ing on a Thursday, and due at San Pedro, the port of 
Los Angeles, by noon next Saturday. It was summer 
weather and the coast steamers were almost invariably 
punctual to schedule time. Feeling perfectly sure that I 
should reach Los Angeles at least twenty-four hours before 
I needed to appear in the theatre, I felt no apprehension, 
after securing my tickets, as to fulfilling my engagement, 
and therefore I was greatly surprised when, while walking 
up Market Street, I heard a voice saying distinctly beside 
me, "Change your ticket; go by train: boat will not 
arrive till Monday." At first I paid no attention to this 
strange admonition, and was simply perplexed to account 
for its origin ; but after it had been twice repeated I re- 
solved to run no risk of disregarding a valuable counsel, 
and I therefore returned to the office where I had secured 
my passage and changed my tickets from boat to rail, 
despite the positive declaration of the booking agent that 
the boats were always on time, and that I could rely on 
meeting my engagement if I adhered to my first intention. 



Autobiography of W. J. Colville 35 

Having procured a railway ticket in compliance with the 
urgent request of the unseen monitor, I mentally asked, 
"What will cause the delay?" to which I received an 
answer, clairaudiently, with great distinctness, "Accident 
to propeller ; no danger, but vessel will have to return for 
repairs; it will arrive safely on Monday." On arrival in 
Los Angeles on the Saturday morning, friends remonstrated 
with me for having forfeited a pleasant water journey at 
a season when boats were far preferable to trains in that 
vicinity ; but I insisted that as I was announced to deliver 
two lectures on the following day it was imperatively neces- 
sary for me to arrive before the steamer, which I was 
certain would be belated. Saturday and Sunday both 
passed and no steamer arrived. I addressed two great 
audiences before the boat finally got in on the Monday 
morning, telling a tale of broken propeller and return to 
port of departure for repairs. 

Another incident of quite a different character, but none 
the less phenomenal, even though less practically useful, 
concerned an acquaintance I formed in London in 1897, 
during a course of private midnight seances I was privi- 
leged to attend at which conditions were exceptionally fine. 
To accommodate the several professionals who were mem- 
bers of the circle, we assembled twice a week at midnight 
and continued our sittings till from 2 to 3 a. m. Our chief 
focus of attraction was a huge crystal placed in the centre 
of a large library table. The crystal was as large as an 
ordinary globe for containing goldfish, and into this bril- 
liant object we all quietly but intently gazed, with a view 
to increasing concentratedness of thought and vision. 
After we had become susceptible to psychic vision we let 
our eyes close if they seemed so disposed, and we described 



36 Autobiography of W. J, Colville 

whatever came before us. Among a multiplicity of telling 
incidents connected with that circle, I remember describ- 
ing accurately scenes then being enacted in a house in 
Brighton occupied by the parents and other relatives of a 
young army officer whose regiment was soon afterwards 
ordered to India. Some months later, when this gentle- 
man was in Calcutta and I in New York, I saw him as 
plainly as though he were physically beside me, and on the 
occasion of his birthday, when some friends presented him 
with a handsome pair of ivory-backed military hair brushes 
on which his monogram was richly chased in blue and 
gold, I saw those articles as plainly as though he and I had 
been actually in a room together, inspecting the birthday 
presents. A letter which came to me from him a few 
weeks later described those brushes precisely and contained 
the words, "I am sure you are receiving a telepathic des- 
patch from me at this instant." 

Though I have narratives to relate which would fill many 
a volume, all illustrative of the great question of psychic 
intercourse between friends yet on earth and those who 
have "passed over," as well as manifold descriptions of 
most convincing telepathy where both parties have been 
incarnate, I must reserve for future opportunities the nar- 
ration of other striking incidents. But now that I have 
rounded out nearly thirty years of public service, I 
feel it a solemn duty as well as a high privilege to bear 
unequivocal testimony to the always beneficial effect which 
mediumship such as I have developed has had on me from 
all standpoints. Mentally and physically I owe immensely 
much to those very endowments and experiences which 
mistaken people imagine are weakening to mind and body. 
That there are dangers and drawbacks I do not deny, but 



Autobiography of W. J. Colville 37 

through all my varied and protracted experiences on and 
off the platform, for more than a quarter of a century, I 
have invariably found that the directions given me from 
unseen helpers have been sound, elevating, and truthful to 
the letter in all particulars ; while the telepathic incidents, 
at which I have scarcely more than hinted, have been al- 
ways interesting, never mischievous, and invariably calcu- 
lated to throw bright light on many a mystic problem. 
During the nearly two years which I spent south of 
the Equator, I still pursued my way unflaggingly and un- 
tiringly in all varieties of climate and in a great variety of 
surroundings. I owe a deep debt of gratitude to friends, 
seen and unseen, for the many tokens of their care and 
kindness which have brightened all my journeyings and 
rendered possible of accomplishment the widely extended 
mission which took me to the Southern Hemisphere. 
Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Newcastle, and 
many smaller places in great Australia, I shall ever feel 
united with as centres of work which I know has already 
borne good fruit in numerous ways. Auckland, Welling- 
ton, and Christchurch in picturesque New Zealand will al- 
ways remain equally sacred in my memory. During all 
my Antipodean wanderings I found' my psychic faculties 
fully as clear and as much in evidence as in other lands 
where the Southern Cross is an unseen constellation. I 
am now assured that my traveling days are not yet over, 
and that I still have oceans to cross, and continents to 
traverse, before I can honorably retire from active service, 
if such retirement shall ever be my portion. The dangers 
of Spiritualism are in my judgment greatly overrated, 
while its blessings are often minimized ; for though I have 
been since 1890 a member of the Theosophical Society, 



38 Autobiography of W. J. Colville 

and my acquaintance ' and connection with the Mental 
Science movement is a matter of public knowledge, I wish 
publicly, emphatically, and irrevocably to bear my testi- 
mony to the irrefutable truth of spirit communion. With 
the peculiar theories advocated by some Spiritualists I have 
no sympathy ; and I dare say there are tricksy spirits, as 
well as unreliable people on this side the mystic border ; 
but though I must remain the "free lance" I have ever 
been, and work wherever I am called to operate, and there- 
fore cannot pose as exclusively a Spiritualist, inclusively I 
am as thoroughgoing an advocate of Spiritualism as any 
of its most enthusiastic representatives. I owe nothing to 
developing circles, and comparatively little to spiritualistic 
literature, or to phenomenal mediumship of an objective 
type ; therefore my assurance of Spiritualism's central claim 
can never be weakened by any controversy which may rage 
concerning dubious phenomena. I have seen the unmis- 
takably genuine, the ambiguous, and the fraudulent, and 
having seen so much I am prepared to testify to this effect, 
irrevocably — that Spiritualism is based on truth, and no 
matter how many barnacles may have to be swept from 
such institutions as are devoted to its special advocacy, the 
twentieth century must and will witness a spiritual reveal- 
ing for which all the wonders of the nineteenth, stupen- 
dous though they have been, have only paved the way. 



Universal Spiritualism 

CHAPTER I 
THE QUESTION OF SPIRIT IDENTITY 

The vexed question of spirit identity is one which is al- 
ways liable to occasion considerable discussion, chiefly by 
reason of the fact that what appears thoroughly conclusive 
to some types of mind seems inconclusive to others. It is, 
therefore, necessary to approach this immense and vital 
subject not only entirely free from prejudice, but also for- 
tified with clear understanding of the actual worth of the 
various theories now submitted for popular acceptance as 
substitutes for what is often termed the spiritualistic hy- 
pothesis. 

We are often asked whether it is possible for us to ex- 
plain clearly how we discriminate between telepathic and 
spiritistic messages. Frankly, we admit that it is often 
quite beyond our present ability to discriminate completely 
between them, but this lack of ability always to discrimi- 
nate, far from weakening the testimony favorable to simple 
Spiritualism, only necessitates a reconsideration of the en- 
tire problem of our human constitution before we attempt 
to formulate an inclusive theory to explain the entire bulk 
of our diversified psychic experiences. A very large num- 
ber of thoughtful readers have been much impressed by 
Thomson Jay Hudson's five celebrated books : " The 

39 



40 Universal Spiritualism 

Law of Psychic Phenomena," " A Scientific Demonstration 
of the Future Life," "The Divine Pedigree of Man," 
" The Law of Mental Medicine," and " The Evolution of 
the Soul," in which the hypothesis known as the dual 
theory of the human mind is very fully and forcibly ex- 
pounded. Professor Hudson, in common with many other 
able writers, labors to some extent under a burden of pre- 
conception adverse to Spiritualism, which often mars the 
beauty and consistency of his otherwise excellent literary 
work. The evidence for telepathy which this author puts 
forward is very strong and in some instances unimpeach- 
able, but the alleged evidence against Spiritualism is 
rationally inadmissible, because it is of a singularly nega- 
tive and supposititious character. We must face our prob- 
lem bravely, not attempting to disguise the fact that dur- 
ing the past several years much evidence has accumulated 
in favor of simple telepathy which some over-enthusiastic 
Spiritualists may have been liable to undervalue because 
it has been erroneously supposed that, if accepted, it would 
tend against the interests of the cause which is nearest of 
all to their hearts. A better understanding of telepathy, 
and a fuller comprehension of what is logically involved in 
Hudson's "two minds" theory, may serve to set many 
doubters at rest. We must not forget that the title of 
Hudson's second book is utterly misleading and an entire 
misnomer, if the evidences of telepathy prove communion 
between friends on earth but throw no light on the condi- 
tion of those who have " crossed the border." The author 
persistently claims that of our two minds, which he per- 
sistently designates objective and subjective, the former 
perishes at the time of physical dissolution, but the latter 
lives on and finds a sphere for fuller and more perfect 



The Question of Spirit Identity 41 

functioning than it ever enjoyed on earth. This theory 
accounts for telepathy as a sort of foretaste of the method 
of communion between friendly entities which will prevail 
unceasingly in the future life. The only flaw that we have 
been able to detect in Hudson's chain of reasoning is the 
poor opinion he seems to entertain of the moral integrity 
of the subjective mind, coupled with the utterly founda- 
tionless assertion that overwhelming evidence of unre- 
stricted telepathy will drive Spiritualists, ere long, even out 
of that ''last ditch" in which they are now desperately 
fighting (according to Hudson) to save a lost cause and 
rescue a forlorn hope. 

Reasonable identification of telepathy with direct spirit- 
communion, instead of introducing a new perplexity and 
further complicating an already complicated situation, in- 
troduces us for the first time to an orderly, harmonious, 
and easily comprehended interpretation of many analogous 
facts and parallel experiences which have long perplexed 
the average student of psychic phenomena, though there 
have always been singularly luminous exponents of mental 
and spiritual science and philosophy, who have gone a 
long distance on the road which must lead eventually to 
universal understanding of man as a spiritual being. 

We have frequently been asked to define clearly wherein 
consists the difference between a message received from a 
friend yet on earth, and a similar communication from one 
who has "passed over." Spiritualistic literature has 
largely been encumbered with two oft-repeated phrases, 
"spirit return" and "spirits coming back to earth." 
These phrases are to a large extent misleading, for, though 
there are instances where such language may accurately 
and adequately describe the nature of certain manifesta- 



42 Universal Spiritualism 

tions, such expressions do not by any means correctly 
serve to describe the actual experiences of the great ma- 
jority of seers and seeresses of ancient or modern times. 
Intromission to the spiritual state is a phrase full of deep 
significance, and, were it used more frequently, it would 
serve to elucidate many a problem of clairvoyance, clair- 
audience, clairsentience, and psychometry. Professors 
Denton and Buchanan, in their learned dissertations con- 
cerning psychometry, illustrated by numerous recitals of 
personal experience, have insisted that a true psychometer 
perceives the aura of an object, and can at times distinctly 
see into the spirit-world and become consciously en rap- 
port with denizens thereof. Such quickened perception 
may fairly be considered as in some degree an anticipation 
of the means of intercourse we shall enjoy one with 
another when we have bade farewell to our robes of flesh. 
We may surely claim that if we are called upon to iden- 
tify those intelligent beings with whom we are in commu- 
nication, we must apply the same laws of evidence to this 
matter as to questions of individual identification when 
only mundane matters are involved. To identify a fellow- 
being in any world is not always easy, and indeed it often 
is found to be extremely difficult when we rely solely on 
outward tests. " The hands are the hands of Esau, but 
the voice is the voice of Jacob " is a vivid Scriptural in- 
stance of the extreme difficulty experienced by an ancient 
patriarch in deciding which of his two sons was actually 
in his presence. The blindness of Isaac is easily typical 
of the condition in which most people are found when 
some sort of deception is successfully practiced upon them. 
Evidences of two kinds are presented together. One set 
of evidences appeal to feeling, the other to intelligence. 



The Question of Spirit Identity 43 

We judge people very often by outward appearances which 
we subsequently find to have been altogether deceptive, 
and if it be admitted in any degree that there are deceiv- 
ing spirits who sometimes visit us, we are obviously placed 
in precisely the same position with reference to them as 
with regard to persons yet on earth who play us false be- 
cause we are open to deception. The difficulties attending 
spirit identification are not necessarily greater than those 
surrounding the identity of persons who are yet encased in 
mortal garments. 

No purely external tests are always valid. Indeed, to 
place extreme reliance upon such alone is to encourage 
swindling, and play into the hands of forgers who are 
usually very capable of simulating perfectly the outward 
garb of those they seek to personate. Testimonials, refer- 
ences, and letters of introduction constitute no infallible 
criteria, as these may all be counterfeit or stolen. The 
only sure way to identify any one absolutely is by culti- 
vating psychic perceptiveness, and this is more apt to be 
strongly developed in highly sensitive persons than in any 
others. Deception is, however, less likely to be practiced 
on the spiritual than on the material side of existence, be- 
cause the motive to deceive is far less strong. Expectation 
of worldly gain urges most deceivers on earth to ply their 
nefarious vocation, and it may be safely assumed that at 
least ninety per cent, of all deception would vanish from 
the earth if no financial or other ulterior gain could accrue 
from it. To palm oneself off as another would be object- 
less folly in which very few people would care to indulge 
did they not think they saw in such deception a means 
for self-enrichment or aggrandizement. 

It may with some fairness be assumed that when com- 



44 Universal Spiritualism 

municating intelligences who display only very meagre in- 
telligence profess to be very celebrated and illtistrious per- 
sonages, they may be hankering for the incense of adula- 
tion, but when no great names are given and no pretentious 
claims are made, it is difficult to see what reason could be 
fairly given for simply stupid masquerading, or deliberate 
misrepresentation of any sort. We know from experience 
that auto-suggestion on the part of the alleged recipient 
of a spiritual communication may account for some in- 
stances of falsification, especially when such self-deception 
tends largely to self-glorification or the gratifying of per- 
sonal vanity. A great drawback to untainted spirit-com- 
munion is the prejudice and vanity of many sensitives, but 
this very foolishness on their part sometimes serves to re- 
veal an aspect of truth which is frequently neglected, viz., 
that there may be perfect sincerity and frankness on the 
side of the unseen communicator, while the person to 
whom the communication is made may be the sole sug- 
gester of the deceptive element. 

A lady in one of the Southern States of America de- 
clared that she was in direct communion with George 
Washington, the first President of the United States ; but 
her friends as a rule laughed at her claim, because by 
means of automatic writing through the lady's hand, and 
by means of trance speaking through her lips, " George 
Washington " expressed himself most ungrammatically and 
in negro dialect. On a notable occasion when " George 
Washington" was speaking through this lady's medium- 
ship, he was distinctly seen by a fine clairvoyant who had 
been invited to a seance, and at the conclusion of the ad- 
dress this seeress described what she had witnessed during 
its delivery, which was the presence of a very decided 



The Question of Spirit Identity 45 

African of Ethiopian tint and cast of feature, and who ap- 
peared strongly attached to the lady through whose me- 
diumship he had been able to deliver a lengthy message. 
On being requested to describe all she saw, the seeress 
went on to give particulars of a venerable old servant who 
had been named " George Washington," who had been a 
faithful retainer of the family prior to the Emancipation 
Proclamation issued in 1865, and had in that year steadily 
refused to accept his freedom, as he dearly loved the old 
estate and was devotedly attached to his master and mis- 
tress, parents of the lady through whom he was then able 
to communicate and whom he had often nursed during her 
earliest girlhood, ere he passed to spirit life, when she was 
not over eight years of age. That simple incident served 
to explain the entire problem, and it afforded a thoroughly 
rational explanation of a phenomenon belonging to a class, 
by no means uncommon in America, which have led to 
denunciations of fraud where none existed — theories of 
wicked personating spirits, and many other vagaries of un- 
balanced judgment — to say nothing of the would-be clever 
remark made by people who were more " smart" than 
wise, that it must be a terrible thing to die if in our post 
mortem condition we so quickly and sadly deteriorate. 
An instance like the foregoing will bear thorough sifting, 
and it is surely much easier to explain such an instance in 
the light of direct spirit communion than by straining an 
auto-suggestive or telepathic hypothesis to the breaking 
point to invent an improbable, in place of a probable, in- 
terpretation. Had the lady referred to suggested the mat- 
ter to herself she would certainly have been fairly gram- 
matical, as she was a comparatively well-educated woman, 
and not being a negress she would not have clothed an 



46 Universal Spiritualism 

imaginary message from George Washington, as she con- 
ceived of him, in negro dialect. Admitting telepathy, 
mental telegraphy, or telephony, or aught else that is in 
any measure psychical, nothing can well be more likely 
than that a good old negro who had been for many years 
a faithful servant to the family residing on that particular 
estate, should seek an avenue of communion with it 
through the agency of a member to whom he had been 
greatly attached just before he passed into the realm of 
spirit. 

It is doubtless true that many spirits leave the earth and 
all pertaining to it, very shortly after the demise of the 
physical body, while others remain closely connected with 
the scenes of their earth existence, not because they are 
earth-bound in the sense of being unhappy creatures who 
cannot, on account of their sensual vices, rise above the 
mundane level, but because their affections still cling to 
persons and places with which they have enjoyed pleasing 
associations up to the latest moment of their terrestrial ex- 
istence. Andrew Jackson Davis, as well as Swedenborg, 
and many other gifted seers, have said much concerning 
the many spheres in this solar system encircling the various 
planets, which have often been numbered from one to 
seven, and then again divided and subdivided into circles 
within circles, like wheels within wheels in Ezekiel's vi- 
sions ; and those who have become strongly attracted to such 
teaching — and their name is legion — have brought forward 
the revelations of these prophets to disavow the declaration, 
made from a somewhat different standpoint, that multitudes 
of spirits cannot return to earth as they have not yet taken 
their departure from this planet's immediate atmosphere, 
or even from the exact localities where a large portion of 



The Question of Spirit Identity 47 

their earthly days were spent in work or amusements in 
which they took a decided interest. 

When indulging in personal reminiscences, I often narrate 
an instance of what seems to me clear evidence of spirit 
identity. When I was in Australia, in 1 900-1, I fre- 
quently employed the services of a bright, enterprising 
young man, who was an excellent typist, and to whom I 
dictated portions of several books and numerous magazine 
articles. Before taking my last earthly farewell of this 
young gentleman, on the eve of his departure for New 
Guinea, whither he went to occupy a post of trust and in- 
fluence, he said to me that he hoped when I returned to 
England he might accompany me on the ocean, as he 
much desired, though by birth an Australian, to visit the 
Mother Country, which, though 12,000 miles distant, is 
invariably called "home" by Australasians. My reply 
was that though I could not definitely foresee my own 
plans for the near future, and could, therefore, promise 
nothing, I held myself in full readiness to fall in with his 
wishes should opportunity occur to favor the carrying out 
of the project. Shortly after his arrival in New Guinea in 
full possession of health, and seemingly of vigorous con- 
stitution, he caught the local fever, and in three days he 
had made his exit from the mortal body. I cannot say 
that he was very frequently in my thoughts, or that his loss 
would seem to me irreparable ; still there was a link of 
sympathy between us which evidently made it possible for 
him to manifest his presence to me on more than one oc- 
casion during three distinct stages of my voyage from Syd- 
ney, via New Zealand and across America, to England. 
The first time he attempted to make himself known to me 
was between Sydney and Auckland, but as I was seldom 



48 Universal Spiritualism 

alone during the four brief days that voyage occupied I 
cannot remember any very definite evidence of his identity, 
though I was fully conscious of his presence. The second 
visit which I know he made me was en route to California, 
when I had a large cabin to myself on the Sonoma and 
not being much acquainted with any of my fellow passen- 
gers I had many opportunities for quiet silence and unin- 
terrupted meditation. I well remember distinctly feeling 
the presence of my young friend with me, just as I had 
known him in Australia, and so real and tangible was the 
sense of that presence that it seemed exactly as though 
another person was sharing the cabin with me. I was 
quite awake, perfectly calm, and fully able to determine 
all he said to me, and yet I am certain I heard nothing 
with my external ears except the motion of the vessel pass- 
ing through the water. Not only did I feel, or sense, his 
presence, but he gave me information concerning his situa- 
tion in New Guinea, and the circumstances of his life 
there, which I subsequently learned, through corre- 
spondence with a mutual acquaintance, were correct in 
every detail. On the third occasion, when I as strongly 
realized his presence, I was nearing Plymouth on my voy- 
age from New York in February, 1902, and on that occa- 
sion he gave me information concerning his present state 
and occupation, and told me several things in regard to my 
own near future, which have since been fully verified. 
Such definite, direct, and truthful communications cer- 
tainly do not proceed from lying spirits, nor do they em- 
anate from my own sub-self, whose reputation for veracity 
and sanity I am naturally interested to maintain ; and 
when 1 speak a good word for my own subjective mind — 
which is to live hereafter when my objective mind has per- 



The Question of Spirit Identity 49 

ished — I stand up equally for the corresponding sub-selves 
or subjective minds of all my neighbors. It is immeas- 
urably more rational to maintain a reasonable spiritualistic 
version of such facts as I have just related than to invent, 
and uphold at all hazard, a contradictory and extremely 
complicated theory of the mysteries of telepathy, which 
serves to befog far more than to enlighten rational inquir- 
ers. In seeking to reply definitely to the very natural in- 
quiry whether there is any marked difference in appearance 
between the psychic, or astral, body of a person yet on 
earth, and of one who has parted company with earthly 
raiments, I venture to suggest that only when the factor of 
clairvoyance is added to telepathy is this clearly deter- 
minable. Usually the appearance to psychic vision of one 
who has left the flesh is more ethereal than that of one who 
is still connected with it, but when only a sense of pres- 
ence is realized, and intelligence is inwardly communicated, 
it is often impossible to decide whether the despatch in 
question is being received from a friend yet on earth or 
from one who is more frequently designated a "spirit." 

Unnecessary difficulties in the way of rational spiritual 
identification are created by many persons who evidently 
mistake identity which pertains to abiding individuality for 
the most external incidences of ever-fluctuating exterior 
personality. Such questions are often raised as, "If you 
see my father can you describe his appearance ? does he 
Avear a beard? how is he dressed ? " and much else of the 
same almost ridiculous character. A little sober reflection 
must convince the veriest tyro that such questions, an- 
swered one way or another, cannot determine identity. 
We all know that fashions alter and habits change with 
wonderful rapidity, and it is by no means difficult for a 



50 Universal Spiritualism 

man to remove a full beard in a few moments, or let one 
grow in a few weeks, thereby completely altering one 
aspect of his appearance. Black hair easily turns white, 
stout persons grow thin, and slender persons become stout, 
very frequently, while changes wrought by passing years 
and varying emotions frequently suffice to render old pho- 
tographs, once speaking likenesses, no longer discernible, 
unless to the acutest students of physiognomy. It is, how- 
ever, continually declared that clairvoyants see our spirit 
friends as they were when we last beheld them or as they 
appeared when we were most intimately associated with 
them. And such testimony, founded as it often is on actual 
fact, needs to be interpreted in the light of other knowl- 
edge than that obtainable by simple and often mysterious 
clairvoyance. Astral pictures are often beheld in the air 
of old houses, where certain people have lived long periods, 
and to which they have become greatly attached, and 
these psychic photographs are often mistaken for the actual 
presence of departed spirits by persons who rely on sight 
as evidence apart from feeling or manifest intelligence. A 
fact in my own experience may serve to illustrate two 
features of this portion of the subject of spirit identity. 

Some years ago I was sojourning in an old country 
house which had been the abiding place of a single family 
ever since its erection. The room assigned me as a sleep- 
ing apartment had, as I afterwards learned, been for many 
years the special working and reading room of a maiden 
aunt who had been quite a second mother to the family. 
In that room she had spent a great part of her time during 
her latest years on earth, and one of her favorite occupa- 
tions was knitting stockings by the fire. For four nights in 
succession, during my occupancy of that room, did I see 



The Question of Spirit Identity 51 

that quiet elderly lady, with knitting in her hands, seated 
before a fire in the grate, which was at that season of the 
year filled with a summer ornament. At first I thought I 
must be actually in communion with the kindly, placid 
dame, and that she might have a message to convey 
through me to some member of the household \ but, con- 
centrate my thoughts and attention intently as I could 
upon the vision, I could detect no animation, nor could I 
receive even the faintest intimation of intelligence. The 
people with whom I was residing were not at all averse to 
Spiritualism, and when I told them exactly what I had 
seen four nights in succession in that particular bedroom, 
they all agreed that it was an exact description of their 
aunt, even to the smooth bands of brown front hair, and 
the cap with lilac satin ribbons tied under the chin ; but 
they, in common with myself, wondered why, if I could 
see their aunt so clearly, I never saw her move and could 
obtain no impression of her intelligence. On the fifth 
night of my occupancy of that apartment I experienced a 
totally different sensation in connection with the same 
apparition, which I again beheld stationary and unrespon- 
sive as before; but on this occasion, hovering over the 
astral picture I beheld a radiant, youthful form bearing a 
certain family resemblance to the abiding simulacrum, but 
instinct with the fire and energy of active life and oper- 
ating intelligence. Contemporaneously with this new addi- 
tional experience, information clearly flowed into some 
receptacle of my consciousness, causing me to become 
aware that the original of the portrait desired her nieces 
and nephews to find in her old writing desk certain papers 
she had written long ago and which she desired should be 
revised, edited, and published. Following the minute 



52 Universal Spiritualism 

directions given me by this guiding intelligence, I accom- 
panied several members of the family to a lumber room in 
which many discarded articles of furniture had long been 
stored ; and there among them stood an ancient escritoire, 
in which we found a completed story setting forth a roman- 
tic and highly edifying history of marvelous episodes in 
what the world would doubtless have looked upon as a 
secluded and uneventful career. After this startling con- 
firmation of the veracity of my vision, we formed a private 
family circle for further investigation, and thereat, by 
means of automatic writing, supplemented by clairvoyance, 
we verified many extraordinary statements made by this 
living relative of the family, who assured us that she was 
no longer sitting by a fire engaged in knitting, but most 
actively employed in spiritual occupations, which did not, 
however, alienate her in the least from her old associates 
but, on the contrary, kept her in close vital touch with all 
of them, though in a subtler and more ethereal manner 
than before she had quitted the material frame. 

Another interesting experience of my own dates back 
to the autumn of 1899, shortly before my first visit to 
Australia. I had long known Mrs. Emma Hardinge 
Britten, but my first interview with her was in 1877, at a 
lecture delivered in Manchester, when she was a middle- 
aged woman, dressed in much the same style as she con- 
tinued to adopt till she finally withdrew from the public 
platform. Since her passing to spirit life, this earnest 
worker has occasionally made herself distinctly known to 
me, both on and off the platform, and in November, 1899, 
I distinctly saw, in connection with a most forceful real- 
ization of her close proximity, the likeness of a radiant 
maiden with light golden curls, somewhat resembling the 



The Question of Spirit Identity 53 

earliest pictures of Mrs. Richmond when she was Cora 
Hatch, but in no way suggesting Mrs. Britten to me by the 
appearance. I never could have understood that vision 
had I not visited Mrs. Wilkinson (Mrs. Britten's sister), 
about a month later, and, while her guest in Manchester, 
been shown a picture taken many years ago, representing 
Emma Hardinge in youthful costume as " Queen of the 
Fairies." This picture represents the young lady who 
afterwards became Mrs. Britten with flaxen ringlets, and 
in every way precisely as she showed herself to me on the 
occasion of my vision. Had I suggested to myself a 
similitude of Mrs. Britten, I should certainly have con- 
jured up from the depths of memory a likeness of her as I 
had known her; and when I interrogated her spiritually 
through the mediumship of automatic writing, subsequent 
to beholding the portrait at Mrs. Wilkinson's, the follow- 
ing message was communicated : " I knew you were going 
to my sister's ; therefore, I wished to give you a singular 
test of my identity, which I find I have succeeded in 
doing ; and there is another reason why I showed myself 
to you thus — I wished to impress you with the knowledge 
that I can now show myself in various forms to my friends, 
and my present appearance far more closely resembles that 
of my youth on earth than that of my later age." 

" How do we know each other here ? " is quite as grave 
a question as " Shall we know each other there?" I re- 
member some years ago, in New York, being asked by a 
mutual friend to meet a gentleman who was returning to 
America after ten years' residence in Germany, and who 
was described to me from a portrait as a slender man with 
jet black hair. And such he doubtless was when he em- 
barked for Germany, but during the decade of years he 



54 Universal Spiritualism 

had spent in Europe, he had grown decidedly corpulent 
and his hair had become positively white. I nevertheless 
knew him by instinct, though I had never met him pre- 
viously, and I accosted him by name, greatly to his sur- 
prise, directly he had left the steamer. Had I been slav- 
ishly governed by my physical senses instead of trusting 
to some surer and subtler faculty of discernment, I should 
certainly have failed to acknowledge him, so greatly did 
he differ in appearance from the description I had been 
given of him. We cannot expect that when we change in 
outward aspects thus rapidly on earth, we shall remain 
• stationary in external aspect in the world of spirits. There 
is, however, this to be said concerning relatively fixed ap- 
pearance in the life beyond. We are not there, as here, 
so greatly affected by outward climate, and outer appear- 
ance changes only as it indicates alterations in our interior 
state. Such is the unanimous and unfaltering verdict of 
spiritual testifiers wherever they have made their presence 
known. 

And now, finally, concerning the weighing of evidence 
in the scales of reason. We may certainly maintain in the 
face of all opposition that every individual communication 
should be judged on its particular merits, and neither be 
accepted nor rejected on the merits or demerits of any 
other submitted message. We cannot believe, unless we 
part company with reason, that we are victims of stupid 
or wicked deception in cases where the teachings given 
are of the highest moral import, and where the informa- 
tion offered is proved correct in every detail as far as we 
can possibly verify it. The crude and intricate theories 
now afloat to discredit evidence of spirit intercourse are 
far more difficult and far less probable than the plain sat- 



The Question of Spirit Identity 55 

isfactory conclusion long ago reached by all intelligent and 
dispassionate inquirers — that we do on many occasions re- 
ceive convincing proof of the identity of communicating 
spirits. In conclusion, let us look for an instant at the 
mental characteristics of a few of the typical students of 
psychic phenomena who during recent years have become 
thoroughly satisfied that in many instances, though not in 
all, proof positive of spirit identity has been obtained. 
Professor Hodgson and Mr. Myers were thoroughly satis- 
fied at length, through Mrs. Piper's mediumship and that 
of other sensitives ; and so were Miss Lilian Whiting and 
Rev. Minot J. Savage, as well as many other representa- 
tive and cautious investigators. These famous persons 
had nothing to gain and possibly something to lose, by 
outspoken advocacy of Spiritualism ; and in the case of 
Dr. Savage it is well known that his tendency of thought 
was decidedly agnostic, and for many years during his 
popular ministry in Boston he was largely a champion and 
exponent of the philosophy of Herbert Spencer. It is dif- 
ficult to see why people should prefer the devil to their 
own friends who have passed beyond the mystic portals, 
and it surely cannot be easier for normal intellects to be- 
lieve in imaginary evil demons, of whom we know practic- 
ally nothing, except on unsupported hearsay, than in the 
presence and activity of the very people whom we have 
known on earth as real personages, and who reappear with 
their own well-known characteristics. Telepathy and all 
other demonstrable phases of psychic phenomena, must be 
freely admitted by every student of psychic science, and 
it has now become the imperative duty and solemn privi- 
lege of all who have knowledge in this direction to eluci- 
date as far as possible the truthful doctrine of the close re- 



56 Universal Spiritualism 

semblance and intimate relation of telepathy to Spiritual- 
ism. Simple telepathy throws much clear light on our 
present spiritual abilities, and spirit communion transcends 
mundane telepathic experience by carrying telepathy across 
the unseen border into those sympathetic realms of spirit- 
ual activity where the powers and functions of our ' ' sub- 
selves " or " subjective minds " are more fully unfolded and 
more freely and extensively exercised than they seemingly 
ever can be during terrestrial embodiment. Let us be 
open to all classes of evidence, and construct theories to 
account for facts, but never seek to squeeze facts into 
grooves of premeditated theory. 



CHAPTER II 

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF ANCIENT AND MODERN 
SPIRITUAL PHILOSOPHY 

To the searcher of ancient records who endeavors to 
diligently compare the views entertained by philosophers 
of remote antiquity with those of the present time, the 
truth of the famous saying, " There is nothing new under 
the sun," is forced home with remarkable force of dem- 
onstration, for notwithstanding the claims for novelty and 
the boasts of originality which meet a student at every 
turn, whenever we candidly compare the newest theories 
with the oldest, we soon discover that the new are very 
old and the old are very new. 

This discovery, far from disheartening, should greatly 
encourage our endeavors to find a common basis for phi- 
losophy rooted deeply in the essential constitution of hu- 
manity, therefore capable of subsisting through all ages 
and reappearing on the surface of human thought period- 
ically, as wave after wave of spiritual excitement testifies 
to the working of a cyclic law in the history of human 
progress. 

Spiritual philosophy is truly Spiritualism as properly dis- 
tinguished from Materialism and Agnosticism, its only two 
serious competitors. Spiritual philosophers base all their 
conclusions upon certain fundamental premises, first 
among which is the cardinal postulate of spirit. 
Whether infinite intelligence or any other specific term 
be now employed to designate the absolute reality, the 
fundamental premise must always be an acknowledgment 

57 



58 Universal Spiritualism 

of infinite eternal life, supreme consciousness, beyond 
all comprehension, yet surely apprehended by' human in- 
tuition and revealed in measure to human understanding. 

It is idle to speculate concerning the Unconditioned 
absolute, as we are living in realms of relativity and can 
only deal with finite concepts and limited experiences, 
yet are we compelled to predicate the illimitable, no matter 
whether we name the Infinite or leave the Infinite un- 
named. 

Herbert Spencer, who is always ranked as a foremost 
agnostic, did not hesitate to say that philosophers had al- 
# ways been divided into schools of Materialists and Spirit- 
ualists, some interpreting universal phenomena in terms of 
Spirit, others in terms of Matter. 

It is not the object of the writer of these pages to enter 
upon any labored endeavor to refute materialistic state- 
ments seriatim, but rather to present in consecutive order, 
as far as possible, some reasons for faith in the spiritual 
nature of the universe which render invalid all denial or 
negation of human immortality. And even should it be 
contended that no philosophy explains all facts or solves 
all problems, granting that such an assertion be correct, 
the acceptance of its verity by no means necessitates our 
acceptance of a philosophy which accounts for fewer in- 
stead of embracing one which explains satisfactorily a 
much larger number of the facts with which we are all 
compelled to wrestle, if we seek to solve the problem of 
existence with the aid of any working hypothesis. 

We find ourselves in an objective world, but in a sub- 
jective region also. We experience much through our 
five external senses which, however, we can by no means 
limit, therefore such terms as clairvoyance, clairsentience, 



Ancient and Modern Spiritual Philosophy 59 

psychometry, and other words coined to express our con- 
sciousness of enlarged perceptions and experiences, are 
quite as much a part of a legitimate vocabulary as the 
much commoner words, sight, hearing, feeling and other 
terms universally employed to designate experiences of 
which all average human beings in normal condition are 
unmistakably conscious. 

Nothing can be more self-evident than that our range of 
observation is practically limitless, for no one can decide 
how much wider or narrower may be another's range of 
observation than his own. We speak glibly enough of five 
senses, and talk of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell, 
and unless some of us are abnormally deficient in common 
faculties we all understand well enough what is meant by 
the terms we so familiarly employ. But when asked how 
much do we see, hear, taste, touch or smell, an amazing 
difference is found to exist among seemingly normal indi- 
viduals, so much so that anything like an average extent 
of knowledge obtainable through the five universally ac- 
knowledged avenues seems almost impossible to reach. 

Once let this admission, which is actually self-evident, 
be estimated at something like its adequate worth, and we 
shall cease to cavil and demur when told of seers and 
seeresses who see, or otherwise become conscious of, far 
more subtle phenomena than meet the ordinary gaze of 
the average man, woman or child. 

To the average human being of to-day, living in a state 
of so-called civilization, and engaged in ordinary secular 
employments, a spiritual realm seems an unknown if not 
an unknowable region. And it cannot be truthfully as- 
serted that the rank and file of religious teachers are much 
more open to conscious acquaintance with the realm of 



60 Universal Spiritualism 

Spirit, than is the bulk of the laity whom clergy seek to 
instruct in spiritual mysteries. 

A very large proportion of religious leaders rest all their 
vaunted knowledge of a spiritual universe and a spiritual 
revelation upon doubtful historic evidences, many of which 
are now seriously discredited in scientific circles. Though 
modern biblical criticism is often unreasonably iconoclastic, 
we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that it does certainly 
seem reasonable to deny that events of a highly mysterious 
character ever occurred in the past if such are never dupli- 
cated in the present. And it cannot be denied that a 
large section of the Christian Church has resolutely con- 
tended against all claims to a present-day revelation, while 
insisting upon the verbal accuracy of every biblical record 
of spiritual manifestations which occurred 1,800 or consid- 
erably more years ago. 

It must of necessity be extremely difficult to verify facts 
many of which are said to be 2,000, 3,000, and even 
more years old, particularly when we are told that nothing 
like them can take place to-day. But no sooner is such 
an insane position abandoned and a reasonable doctrine 
of the persistent continuity of spiritual revelation substi- 
tuted, than the chief objections vanish and the greatest 
difficulties are dispelled. Not one Bible only, but many 
Bibles must be searched and studied side by side before 
we can fairly claim to be acquainted, even in barest out- 
line, with the bulk of testimony which long ages have 
afforded to substantiate the primal claim of all Spiritualists, 
that we as human beings are not mere mortal existences, 
but immortal entities clad a while in mortal garb. 

Our first enquiry must be into the nature of humanity 
itself, then let us proceed to points of variation which serve 



Ancient and Modern Spiritual Philosophy 61 

to distinguish individuals and races from each other. 
Every human being, so far as we have opportunity to 
judge, is endowed with affection, desire to live, and many 
other distinctly universal attributes which humanity does 
not, however, exclusively possess, as the entire animal 
kingdom gives evidences of sharing these emotions. 

Evolutionists of the materialistic school, headed by 
Prof. Ernst Haeckel of Germany, lay much stress upon 
the fact that many animals (dogs especially) display quali- 
ties which we are accustomed to call moral, and if we 
claim immortal life for human beings, we must be pre- 
pared to concede some future existence for the higher 
animals as well as for ourselves. 

With such a proposition, thus mildly stated, we are 
prepared to take no issue, and were that doctrine the sum- 
ming up of Haeckel's teachings, we should offer no protest 
against conclusions reached in "The Riddle of the Uni- 
verse." But its author emphatically denies that there is a 
true human entity or a persistent soul surviving physical 
dissolution, either in man or animal. It is not with any 
affirmative declaration concerning animals, but with negative 
statements concerning humanity that we take decisive issue. 

If certain animals are conscious of yearnings after con- 
tinued life, and are capable of sharing and enjoying it, 
they will certainly have their portion in a state beyond the 
grave ; but to grant continued existence for certain animals 
is in no sense to deny, or even to call in question, human 
immortality. 

With the purely philosophic view of immortality, be- 
ginningless and endless individual life as proclaimed by 
Socrates, according to Plato, comparatively few modern 
Spiritualists attempt to deal, although there are some who 



62 Universal Spiritualism 

declare with the world-renowned Cora L. V. Richmond, 
that inspiring intelligences of great experience and pro- 
found wisdom affirm that the soul is an " eternal finite 
entity." Be this as it may, we can none of us deny that 
the doctrine of preexistence as well as future existence 
has been taught by illustrious seers and sages in almost 
every age and clime. And this fact is vouched for by 
Dr. J. M. Peebles and other veteran Spiritualists who be- 
long to a school which opposes the doctrine of repeated 
embodiments of the soul, and does not hesitate to attack 
vigorously the views of many prominent Theosophists. 

On all points of speculative philosophy, both as con- 
cerns man's past and future, it appears that there is as 
much difference in the spirit-world as there is on earth, if 
we may credit the testimony which the ages have brought 
concerning teachings received from the other side of the 
mortal veil which hangs between the earth and spheres of 
existence capable of manifesting individual life through 
other than physical vehicles. But on one point all spirit- 
ual testimony seems agreed, viz. : that life on the inner 
side of the mystic veil is subject to the same great uni- 
versal law which regulates the course of individual exist- 
ence on the outer earth. 

Human nature is not changed by death, for death only 
removes an outer covering (the most external sheath of 
personality) leaving the entity and its psychic vehicle en- 
tirely unmolested. Shakespeare's expression "When we 
have shuffled off this mortal coil" has never been im- 
proved. As centuries roll on and testimonies accumulate 
concerning spiritual existence, we can still revert to Ham- 
let and ponder over the marvelous insight displayed in that 
immortal tragedy. 



Ancient and Modern Spiritual Philosophy 63 

The description of Hamlet's father clad in armor is one 
of those unmistakable evidences of world-wide belief in 
the actual objectivity of the psychic realm which crops 
out wherever any attempt is made to vividly portray a 
condition beyond death ; and though there are, to some 
minds, grave difficulties connected with this dominant and 
everlastingly persistent faith, it is, when closely analyzed, 
found to be entirely rational and in complete accordance 
with all that we have a right to expect. 

In Shakespeare's day belief in purgatory was undoubt- 
edly strongly ingrained in the mind of the British nation, 
even though the Protestant reformers had vigorously in- 
veighed against it, and the thirty-nine Articles of the 
Church of England distinctly repudiates what it styles the 
" Romish " form of the doctrine. 

But theological disputes aside, the idea of suffering for 
purposes of spiritual purification beyond the grave is com- 
mon to all religious and philosophical systems at their base, 
though there have often been times when a reactionary 
movement has set in against a reasonable doctrine, in con- 
sequence of perversions and abuses such as the "sale of 
indulgences," which at one time gave great scandal in 
many parts of Europe. But protest as we may against 
accretions which may be fairly termed excrescent, we are 
not justified in casting any slur upon the essentials of a 
doctrine which is at root reasonable and moral in the ex- 
treme. 

Hamlet's father had been a good king, a faithful ruler 
beloved and honored by his subjects, and it seems at the 
first glance not quite fair that he should be a sufferer in 
the unseen world, because it was only Hamlet's mother 
and uncle who had committed grievous wrong. It takes 



64 Universal Spiritualism 

but a very little psychic insight, however, to perceive that 
Shakespeare was teaching forcibly the all-important truth 
that no spiritual rest or bliss is possible while thirst for 
vengeance vitiates the heart. 

Hamlet's father was seeking, so the tragedy declares, to 
force his son to be revenged upon his wife and brother, 
but though those individuals had proved guilty of atro- 
cious crimes, there could be no peace for the spirit which 
haunted earth with such an object in view as that of work- 
ing bitter, even though not unjust, retaliation. 

Recompense is meted out to all by infinite equity, and 
it is sound doctrine that assures us that we are rewarded 
by our virtues and afflicted by our vices. But let the 
mills of destiny do their own most perfect grinding, it is 
not for us to interfere, and we cannot seek to interfere, 
without wrecking our own happiness, with the outworking 
of the changeless plan which causes every word, deed, 
and even secret thought, to be its own rewarder or 
avenger. 

The armor worn on the psychic plane by the spirit who 
is still in will a warrior, describes with glowing accuracy a 
fundamental proposition of universal Spiritual philosophy, 
a truth attested by every seer and sage who has spoken 
definitely on the mighty subject of the relation of subject- 
ive causes to exterior effects. 

When the old English poet, Spencer, in his " Faerie 
Queen," tells us 

"The soul is form, and doth the body make, 
For of the soul the body form doth take," 

that bard of olden days, with keen spiritual discernment 
such as poets frequently make manifest, found himself far 



Ancient>and Modern Spiritual Philosophy 65 

more knowing in the realm of deep philosophy than his 
illustrious nineteenth century namesake, the philosophic 
Spencer, who found a mighty obstacle in the world's per- 
petual belief in what he called " the immortality of clothing." 

The plastic substance of the psychic plane, which is 
matter of a less gross grade than that of the external earth, 
lends itself far more readily than does the grosser sort to 
every psychical emotion. Therefore have the seers of all 
ages informed us that the state of conscious existence 
which survives physical embodiment, and is the next state 
following immediately upon the present, does not differ 
very radically from the earthly plane in any important 
particular. 

The concensus of statement among seers and sages may 
be summed up in a single sentence used by Dr. Lyman 
Abbott many years ago, " We do not die and live again, 
we simply go on living." And long after that phrase had 
become familiar, as an expression in harmony with what 
was at one time called " new progressive orthodoxy " came 
the monumental work of Prof. Frederick W. H. Myers, 
bearing the title " Human Personality, its survival of 
bodily death." In the course of two massive volumes ex- 
tending to 1,360 pages, that able, conscientious, tireless 
worker in the field of "psychical research " gave to the 
world as a most valuable legacy, a carefully kept record 
of experiences extending over from twenty to thirty years, 
during which long period Prof. Myers was a co-investi- 
gator with Sir Wm. Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, and many 
other illustrious men of brilliant scientific attainments who 
never hesitated to bend their best energies to an enquiry 
into the mysteries of what the gifted journalist and author 
Wm. Stead calls "Borderland." 



66 Universal Spiritualism 

And it is along the border line between two planes of 
conscious activity, often called two worlds, tliat most mod- 
ern investigations in the psychic field are industriously 
conducted. Beyond the border, few seek, or dare, or 
even know how to venture. The typical Spiritualist who 
prizes phenomena and delights in "tests," no matter how 
conscientious and upright he or she may be, seeks and finds 
only the fringe of the border of that immeasurable spirit- 
ual universe which stretches to infinity. 

With all becoming modesty, therefore, scientific ex- 
plorers claim to be agnostic regarding what lies very far 
ahead of immediate conditions directly connected with or- 
dinary life on earth. Beautiful and blessed are the conso- 
lations, and valuable indeed the lessons which borderland 
experiences can teach, but there are adventurers, bold en- 
quirers, intrepid souls who falter not because of difficulty 
or of danger, who have in all ages (and their race is not 
extinct to-day), crossed the mystic bar, transcended the 
occult threshold, and sailed forth upon the unfathomed 
ocean of transcendentally spiritual existence. 

Such are the Illuminati, the master-spirits to whom we 
are assuredly indebted for the highest instruction to be 
found in the world's many bibles whose arcane significance 
remains unguessed by the teeming multitudes who con the 
letter but seek not to crack the shells of spiritual nuts, for 
they dream not of the delicious and nutritious meat within. 
As we trace the history of spirit-communion through the 
ages, we shall catch occasional glimpses of a dazzlingly 
fair transcendent realm beyond, though very often our eyes 
will be directed only to the border and what lies just be- 
yond our present physical existence. 



CHAPTER III 

DIFFERING ASPECTS OF SPIRITUAL PHILOS- 
OPHY—THE RIGHTEOUS CLAIMS OF 
EGOISM AND OF ALTRUISM 

Quite recently the statement has appeared in public 
print that in addition to the " Iron " rule of conduct which 
bids us render evil for evil; the ''Silver" rule which 
counsels us to return good for good ; and the " Golden " 
rule which urges that good be rendered in exchange for 
evil, there is still another rule which should be the guide 
of all who accept modern spiritual philosophy, a "Dia- 
mond" rule which exhorts us to do "all for others." 
Beautiful and ennobling though the sentiment may be 
which is couched in such uncompromisingly altruistic 
language, there seems room for dispute as to whether such 
a precept is truly practical or altogether desirable. The 
charms of altruism consist in its avowed unselfishness, and 
we are often told that to be saintly we must be selfless. 
But is this counsel entirely sound ? Will it stand the test 
of rigorous investigation, or is there somewhere a defect 
which renders it less than perfectly satisfactory ? Egoism 
is doubtless far more ancient than altruism ; it is indeed 
the most primitive of all philosophies, entrenched as it is 
in that stronghold of self-preservativeness which is the 
primal instinct of every living creature. " I must pro- 
tect myself," says every form of animate existence, and 
human entities offer no exception to the universal rule. 
Egotism is a corrupted and insufferably conceited form of 

67 



68 Universal Spiritualism 

egoism and does not rank among philosophies, therefore 
we need not now discuss it, but simple egoism or individ- 
ualism must be reckoned with as a permanent factor direct- 
ing human conduct. Altruism is extremely difficult to 
comprehend though mutualism, which is pure philanthropy, 
is readily comprehended. Even Tolstoi, the most nearly 
altruistic of all great characters now in the public eye, 
must pay some heed to his own requirements or even he 
could not sustain existence on the earthly plane. But the 
question evidently raised by advocates of the " Diamond " 
precept is can we not still care for ourselves but only 
because we know that by so doing we are helping others ? 
The answer is readily given that we can, but this granted 
is it not well to inspect -our motives a little closely and put 
ourselves on guard against exaggerated statements which 
may lead us unconsciously into the quagmire of hypocrisy. 
That there may be a few exceptional individuals who do 
all with a view to the good of others is quite conceivable, 
but we need, when formulating a practical philosophy, to 
adapt it to the rank and file of honest aspiring human 
beings, not to render it acceptable only to a very small 
minority of exceptionally spiritualized individuals. A 
highly respected English bishop, late of the See of Peter- 
borough, said that the " Sermon on the Mount" was never 
intended for ordinary humanity but exclusively for special 
disciples who, to use theological language, had been called 
to transcend the way of the commandments and walk in 
the narrower path of the counsels of perfection. That 
there is some justification for that view cannot be gainsaid 
when we remember the peculiar circumstances amid which 
the body of doctrine thus designated is said to have been 
enunciated, and research into earlier and contemporary 



Differing Aspects of Spiritual Philosophy 69 

literature by no means disposes of the idea that exceptional 
teachers sometimes gave exceptional teaching to exceptional 
disciples. The doctrine of extreme non-resistance advo- 
cated in such familiar sayings as " whoever would deprive 
you of your coat let him have your cloak also " and " who- 
ever would compel you to go one mile, go with him two 
miles" is susceptible of more than a single interpretation. 
It therefore becomes us to endeavor to grasp the widest 
possible application of such counsels if we profess any re- 
gard for their authority. 

With the state of the Roman world and the Jewish peo- 
ple eighteen or nineteen centuries ago we are not now 
immediately concerned. We cannot, however, afford to 
entirely neglect historic features if we are to clearly grasp 
the genuinely practical import of teachings which are said 
to constitute the original basis of Christian ethics. Judea 
was a Roman province and Caesar's eagles were displayed 
in Jerusalem as a sign of Roman supremacy at the begin- 
ning of the Christian era. Then, as in many later as well 
as earlier times, certain Jews were extremely ready to take 
up arms and fight to rescue Zion from servitude to Rome. 
The more spiritually-minded teachers in a community are 
always averse to warfare, and the wisest among them, 
owing to deep spiritual penetration, are able to clearly fore- 
tell the literal uselessness as well as barbarity of a fierce 
material contest. They consequently use their utmost en- 
deavors to proclaim a policy of non-resistance by brute 
force, but they never hesitate to advocate mental and 
moral resistance to iniquity. The over -valuation of 
material things leads many a man and woman to think 
very highly of the surrender of coats and cloaks and all 
sorts of material goods and chattels, which in the eyes 



/ 



o Universal Spiritualism 



of seers and sages are of very little value. A neighbor 
may be in destitute circumstances and require certain 
garments of which you have an over-supply. Let him 
have them if he wants them, says the spiritual master, but 
never give up your honor. Your extreme generosity may 
win for you the good-will of many who would be otherwise 
your persecutors ; your readiness to make even more inno- 
cent concessions to your reputed foes than they demand 
may obtain for you their good opinion and prevent cruel 
massacres. Seeing that there are many sacrifices you can 
make without lowering your moral standard, make them in 
a spirit of true philanthropy and thereby you may convert 
enemies into friends, oppressors into advocates. Such 
counsel is sound as well as politic and reflects the highest 
possible credit upon whoever may have been the first to 
announce it to the world. The only possible controversy 
concerning such magnificent and thoroughly practical 
doctrine centers around the comparatively unimportant 
question whether the hero of the Christian gospels was or 
was not the original enunciator of so sublime a set of pre- 
cepts. Many Jews who highly endorse the sentiment attrib- 
uted to Jesus, declare that Jewish literature much older than 
the beginning of the Christian era emphasizes the same 
vital rule of conduct. Students of Indian philosophy also 
come forward with a similar declaration concerning 
Buddhistic teaching which antedated the origin of the 
gospel manuscripts by several centuries. Historical re- 
search alone is competent to deal with controversies of 
such a nature, but it is clear to the eye of all impartial 
students that no really important point is raised by such 
discussion as to the ethical value of the doctrine submitted 
for consideration. Judging from the recent action of a 



Differing Aspects of Spiritual Philosophy 7 1 

widely advertised * l Interchurch ' ' movement which has 
excluded Unitarians from fellowship one can see that it 
may be considered vital in the interests of strictly orthodox 
Christian theology to separate the teachings attributed to 
Jesus entirely from all other counsels given to mankind, 
for by so doing support may be seemingly lent to the 
doctrine of exclusive divinity claimed for the great Master 
of Christendom, but aside from the peculiar interests of 
controversial theology there is nothing gained, and pos- 
sibly much lost, by insisting that in one collection of 
valuable scriptures alone can we discover the highest moral 
guidance. To the universal religionist it is a source of 
delight to discover that the very highest standard of 
morality has been upheld in many lands, in many ages, 
by many illumined teachers, and surely in days when the 
frightful effects of religious bigotry are so awfully manifest 
that American citizens and British subjects regardless of 
creed, when imbued with the spirit of humanity, have 
sought to induce the President of the United States and 
representatives of British authority to urge upon the 
Russian government the necessity of putting an immediate 
stop to outrages upon unoffending Jews inspired by race 
prejudice and religious fanaticism of the worst imaginable 
sort, it will prove a boon to all humanitarians if scholars 
can give the Christian world to understand that the noble 
and glorious rules of conduct emphasized in gospel records 
are not to be found in the New Testament alone but are 
the common heritage of enlightened humanity conveyed 
through the illumined and inspiring seers and sages of 
every race and age. We hear very much in these days 
about the relation between religion and business and it is 
well that pulpits ring with protests against commercial dis- 



72 Universal Spiritualism 

honesty and that preachers urge upon congregations every- 
where the supreme importance of a spiritual life which can 
be lived every hour of every day, every day in every year. 
"Tainted money " and " frenzied finance " are phrases 
which many seek to conjure with and doubtless much that 
is extravagant is often said when these highly sensational 
topics are being passionately dealt with, but the great 
cause for thankfulness in this generation is that there is a 
palpable renaissance of morals now everywhere in evidence. 
Mammon worship is going out of date. The still mighty 
dollar is no longer believed to be almighty and a sense of 
responsibility towards moral order is surely taking the place 
of conscienceless search for naught but material gain. 
Nothing is so pleasing or so hopeful, nothing so cheering to 
the heart of genuine philanthropists as to note how in- 
creasingly sensitive the public conscience is assuredly be- 
coming. Churches are doing much good work in this 
direction, but the ethical sentiment is quite apart from all 
ecclesiastical affiliations and is demonstrating its sov- 
ereignty in many movements which are founded upon no 
dogmatic theological basis. The work of Felix Adler of 
New York, and all associated with him in the interests of 
simply Ethical Culture, which is entirely distinct from any 
special kind of theology, is quite sufficient to convince all 
who use their reasoning faculties to-day that in church and 
out of church, in college and out of college, men, women, 
youths and maidens are beginning to feel intensely that the 
mere holding of great wealth is no passport to the esteem 
of right-minded people anywhere. We know it can be 
argued, and it often is, that John D. Rockefeller, Andrew 
Carnegie, and other multimillionaires are almost wor- 
shiped wherever they appear, even if it be at a Bible 



Differing Aspects of Spiritual Philosophy 73 

(lass, but it ought not to be overlooked that the chief cause 
for admiring those unquestionably remarkable men is the 
prevalent belief that they have been more industrious and 
have evinced more intellectual ability than have the bulk 
of their contemporaries. It is not necessary to prove 
whether such a belief in those particular instances is well- 
founded or ill-founded, the fact remains that that section 
of the public which almost adores the very wealthy indi- 
vidual of to-day professes to see in the object of its vener- 
ation not so much money as enterprising will and intellec- 
tual ability. 

Now comes the higher standard. We have worshiped 
intellect too much ; we are seeing that intellect alone can 
be cruel, unjust, tyrannical, and from cold intellectuality 
we are turning our affection towards a purely spiritual 
type of morality. By spirituality should never be meant 
sentimental piety, which is the very reverse of heroic piety, 
but that true saintliness which is soundness, symmetry, 
holiness in the true meaning of the term. " Do all for 
others " sounds well and it contains the germ of a mighty 
truth, but it is an ill-chosen sentence by reason of its non- 
applicability in its obvious form to the actual nature of 
humanity. The American Declaration of Independence 
signed in 1776 served a needed purpose then, and still 
contains much that is permanently valuable, but were we 
to draw up a declaration now we might frame it around 
the greater word interdependence which truly embodies the 
idea of righteous fellowship between nations as well as 
individuals. 

Selfishness and unselfishness, or selflessness, are words 
which are pitted against each other as though one was 
entirely wrong and the other entirely right. The utterly 



74 Universal Spiritualism 

selfish person (if he exist) is a monster not a normal human 
being, while the utterly unselfish or selfless person conveys 
the idea of one who is impracticable. Self-culture is cer- 
tainly not selfishness, but it springs in measure, though 
not entirely, from self-regard and it seems almost impos- 
sible to draw such very subtle lines as would need to be 
drawn in economic teaching if a class in social science 
and political economy had to be taught by a professor of 
sociology from the standpoint of unqualified altruism. 
The mutualistic position is sane, safe, sound, sensible, and 
has the great merit of being easily understood. If any 
thoroughgoing altruist assumes the middle way of Mutual- 
ism to be a " compromise " then it is not for him to theo- 
retically advocate it, but even he will discover, sooner or 
later, that as no radical or essential change can be expected 
to take place in human nature his efforts will be productive 
of far less generous fruit than those of his equally conscien- 
tious, though less sentimental, neighbor who unblushingly 
acknowledges that he takes human nature as he finds it 
and deals with it accordingly. Self-interest itself is not 
the shocking vice which altruists infer it to be, nor are we 
obliged to mourn over inate depravity before commencing 
to instruct young people in mutual obligations, for many 
more unkind and unjust deeds are performed thoughtlessly 
than with malice aforethought; and because we know 
this to be so we are not so depressed and weighed down 
with a sense of the world's exceeding sinfulness as are 
many of our ''altruistic" neighbors. We do not see in 
simple self-love a sin but only a natural instinct, not the 
highest or sublimest instinct of humanity, only the earliest 
and most rudimentary, a good and tangible instinct never- 
theless and one which Swedenborg has assured us con- 



Differing Aspects of Spiritual Philosophy 75 

tin ues to inhere in even the celestial angels who are human 
beings entirely regenerated according to Svvedenborg's 
philosophy and theology. As members one of another let 
us seek to live up even to the altitude of the Beatitudes. 
11 Blessed are the pure in heart" and "Blessed are the 
peacemakers" are two of the loveliest, truest, and most 
inspiring sentences in any literature. For beauty and 
simplicity of statement they are decidedly unsurpassed and 
they may fairly be selected as among the choicest gems in 
the casket of ethical philosophy. It remains then only to 
consider what may be reasonably intended when those 
great sayings are set forward as " counsels of perfection." 
When a distinguished bishop of the English Church said 
that business could not be conducted in strict conformity 
with the Sermon on the Mount he merely resorted to 
Jesuitical casuistry, and this every Jesuit teacher will ad- 
mit, for Jesuits have never hesitated to declare that there 
are lower than saintly standards of morality which can be 
safely tolerated in the secular state though a much higher 
rule must prevail among all who give themselves up to a 
technically " religious " life. The same distinction is made 
in India among Brahmans, and this is freely admitted by 
Annie Besant in articles Avhich appeared in the Theo- 
sophical Review during the summer of 1905, at a time 
when the terrible war then raging between Russia and 
Japan called forth protest of the most vigorous kind 
against warfare in all directions. Katherine Tingley, from 
"Lomaland" in Southern California, inveighed against all 
justification of warfare and in her very interesting and 
instructive periodical New Century Path she called atten- 
tion to the self-evident, but often unheeded, fact that war 
is not simply an outlet for impurities in the planet's body 



76 Universal Spiritualism 

as many Theosophists and others not unreasonably aver, 
but it is a means of generating fresh disease, and from 
that standpoint it is certainly well for us to regard it. 
Children are brought up to fight, they are taught the 
brutal art of physical self-defense, to call which "manly" 
is absurd because every animal practices it and there can 
be nothing distinctly human in doing what every quad- 
ruped does also. Henry George in his masterly work 
"The Science of Political Economy" has called needed 
attention to a greatly neglected aspect of this vast theme, 
for he teaches unequivocally that we know ourselves to be 
truly human only by discovering and exercising super- 
animal traits. We all know that warships and guns have 
long been blessed by prelates, that weapons of warfare are 
taken to church services and that arms are presented by 
soldiers at the most solemn moment in a Military Mass 
even in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. But 
there are some people among us who are daring to hope 
that new thought may lead to new action and that these 
old practices which are supported by ages of established 
precedent may in the present century become defunct. 
True it is that a Boy's Brigade conducted by clergymen 
of the English church may teach boys who belong to it 
useful lessons in obedience and self-restraint and they may 
be much better situated with a view to general moral train- 
ing than are soldiers generally in barracks, but it is a poor 
comment on established Christianity with all its vaunted 
following of the "Prince of Peace" that it can show no 
higher than a military ideal to the unchurched and un- 
christianized multitudes. Complaints are constantly made 
of an alleged decline in religion based upon the supposed 
extreme self-seeking of this age, but despite all gloomy 



Differing Aspects of Spiritual Philosophy 77 

views, which some facts seem largely to substantiate, the 
bright side of the present outlook is clearly manifest to all 
who take adequate account of the earnest protest against 
iniquity and the outcry for justice and humanity which 
has never been louder or stronger than it is to-day. The 
signs of the times at present point unfalteringly to the 
opening of a dispensation of clearer light and fuller equity 
than the world has yet enjoyed within any historic period, 
and to usher in the glad new age the ancient trumpet 
sound is heard anew : Love thy neighbor as thyself. Than 
this there is no higher precept, for herein we trace the true 
meeting place of science with religion, a genuinely syn- 
thetic philosophy satisfying alike the conscience and the 
reason of the human race, blending self-improvement with 
loving service devoted to the good of all. Such we claim 
is the unanimous teaching of illumined teachers Oriental 
and Occidental, ancient and modern alike. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE SPIRITUAL FAITH OF ANCIENT EGYPT 

Thanks to the enterprising spirit of the present enquir- 
ing age, we need not remain in serious doubt as to what 
was the faith of those mysterious ancient people who were 
old as a nation long before the Joseph of the Pentateuch 
. was appointed to high station under one of the Pharaohs, 
native princes of Mizraim. Though the very greatest in- 
terest has long centred in a single monument, the Great 
Pyramid at Gizeh, whose splendid and exact mathematical 
proportions are still a living wonder to the chief among 
modern Egyptologists, it is by no means a thankless task 
to wander far from that unique structure, which stands un- 
rivaled, internally if not externally, among the world's 
discovered monuments, and gaze upon the numerous 
erections which thickly stud the Delta of the Nile, all 
bearing testimony to the faith and life of a mighty and 
curious people who largely influenced Greece, and through 
Greece the entire civilized world, after their own supremacy 
among nations had been utterly extinguished. 

"The Book of the Dead," which contains an enormous 
mass of fascinating information for students of ancient be- 
liefs and customs, can now be obtained in a partly English 
dress without much difficulty, and it is from that extra- 
ordinary volume that we can gather enough concerning 
ancient Egypt to familiarize us pretty thoroughly with the 
Egpytian theory of the soul and its transmigrations enter- 
tained long before the period of the Israelitish Exodus. 

7 8 



The Spiritual Faith of Ancient Egypt 79 

The remarkable silence of the Old Testament concerning 
the state of the departed soul is not so much due to the 
materialistic tenor of early Hebrew thought as to the close 
acquaintance with Egyptian Eschatology which un- 
doubtedly prevailed among the people who were led by 
Moses out of Egypt to found a new nation in Palestine. 

Though considerable superstition, some of it beautiful 
and some of it repellent, attaches to this old body of doc- 
trine, it has for the most part a noble moral tendency, as 
the entire philosophy of a future life elaborated in ancient 
Egypt exalts character far above belief; and the influence 
of this early faith upon the Jewish mind is easily traced by 
even the most casual reader of the Pentateuch. Life was 
in ancient Egypt, exactly as it was in later Palestine, a 
continuous round of religious duties. The universe was 
regarded as living, and all the forces of Nature were looked 
upon as spiritual agencies. Therefore there was no athe- 
ism or infidelity, and very little scepticism, rationalism, or 
agnosticism among Egyptians, and there is very little 
among their descendants to-day. The average Christian 
from Europe or America has an utterly false idea of Solar 
worship, and also of Sex worship, two of the very oldest 
forms of worship of which any traces have been found ; 
and though boasting of exceptional culture, and the pos- 
session of a perfect divine revelation, Christian nations 
until very recently have been engulfed in superstitions of a 
materialistic type, such as pagan peoples never entertained. 

William Rounseville Alger in his long famous work, 
" The Destiny of the Soul ; A Critical History of the Doc- 
trine of a Future Life" informs us that the ancient 
Egyptians can only be understood, as to their views con- 
cerning a future existence, when we have comprehended 



80 Universal Spiritualism 

the motives which led them to lay the immense stress they 
laid on embalming the dead. Contrary to many wide- 
spread opinions favoring the gratuitous assumption that in 
early Egypt belief in a literal physical resuscitation of the 
corpse prevailed we are led, alike by analogy and testi- 
mony, to conclude that the Egyptian theory of resurrection 
was far more nearly in accord with some modern ideas 
attributed to Theosophists than with the old school ortho- 
dox Christian conception of a literal physical re-animation. 
Herodotus declares that the Egyptians of old believed that 
after the dissolution of the flesh the soul passed through a 
round of transmigrations, and eventually reassumed a 
physical human body, but not the same body that it had 
laid aside. This is an ancient view of reincarnation, a 
doctrine which in one or other of its varied aspects is con- 
stantly cropping out in modern literature and laying hold 
upon popular thought. 

The body which was embalmed was always seriously 
mutilated ; the brain was extracted, and the skull stuffed 
with cotton. A most important section of the anatomy 
was therefore unpreserved. This fact alone is sufficient to 
prove that the resurrection of the identical physical struc- 
ture was not a primitive Egyptian anticipation. The real 
object of embalming may fairly, in general outline, be 
stated as follows : 

While the practice of embalming was clearly not con- 
nected with any idea of a future physical resuscitation, it was 
intended to keep constantly in vision the images of the de- 
parted, much as we employ portraits and statues without the 
slightest expectation that our departed friends will incarnate 
within them ; though it is quite generally believed in India 
that sacred images do, in a certain sense, possess magical 



The Spiritual Faith of Ancient Egypt 81 

qualities, and that they furnish links of* communion, more 
or less direct, between us and those who are represented 
by the images. Therein is a mild explanation of much that 
is commonly called idolatry, a view which frees a good 
portion of idolatrous practice from actually reprehensible 
associations. This view, now quite widely entertained by 
students of Oriental beliefs and practices, furnishes a con- 
siderable clue to the Egyptian customs of embalming, 
which were by no means confined to human bodies, but ex- 
tended to all venerated animals, a fact clearly attested by 
the presence of mummied cats in the British Museum in 
London. 

Modern research among Egyptian antiquities is revealing 
with constantly increasing clearness the spirit of the relig- 
ion of that curious ancient land whose extant monuments 
furnish overwhelming evidence in favor of the doctrine of 
immortality couched in the symbolic language of figura- 
tive art. Cats, dogs, beetles, and other " sacred " creatures 
were not probably venerated to the extent that compara- 
tively modern Christian critics have supposed, but they 
were undoubtedly used as reminders of certain definite 
qualities, and often regarded as links with some of the 
lesser divinities. Mummy-cases are, in very many in- 
stances, profusely decorated with scenes intended to 
represent the experiences of souls in Hades (an inclusive 
term intended to include many varied conditions of post- 
mortem existence, ranging from very gloomy to almost 
glorious states). The god Thoth is frequently described 
leading the soul into Amen, the underworld in which souls 
polluted by grievous sins suffer greatly, but which holds no 
terrors for those who have led pure lives. The soul of the 
newly departed is often represented kneeling and inter- 



82 Universal Spiritualism 

ceding before the forty-two assessors of Osiris. The final 
trial takes place in the Hall of Two Truths, one of which 
approves, and the other condemns. Another name is the 
Hall of Dual Justice, which metes out rewards and penal- 
ties. Three divinities, Horus, Anubis, and Thoth, weigh 
every soul in an unvarying balance. In one scale an 
image of a female divinity is placed, in the other a heart- 
shaped vase, symbolizing the heart of the departed with all 
the actions of the earthly life. Thoth notes the results on 
a tablet, and the soul advances with it to the foot of the 
throne of Osiris, who pronounces sentence, which his 
assistants execute. A condemned soul, one whose evil acts 
outweigh the good, is either sent back immediately to be 
re-born as a repulsive animal or reptile, or driven into the 
atmosphere at the mercy of the tempests, till all sins are 
expiated; after which another terrestrial human life begins. 

Unacceptable though this doctrine may be to some modern 
philosophers, it is immeasurably superior to any view of 
endless useless torment such as many benighted Christian 
theologians have proclaimed, for the simplest reasoning 
must suffice to prove that any penalty which ultimately up- 
lifts the one who undergoes it may be benevolent at core, 
while unending misery is a conception for which there is 
neither rational explanation nor apology. 

Ancient Egyptian theories of cosmogony are distinctly 
worthy of consideration, particularly in consequence of the 
side-light they throw upon the familiar accounts in Genesis. 
The divisions of the universe popularly accepted in the 
Egypt of long ago included the earth, considered as a 
place of trial where all live a probationary existence, and 
an atmosphere in which all sins are punished, and where all 
offenses may be expiated. The spiritual realm is described 



The Spiritual Faith of Ancient Egypt 83 

as a serene blue sky where the blessed dwell in peace and 
happiness imperturbable. 

Many allusions to Egyptian beliefs are discoverable in 
several of St. Paul's epistles, and his mention of the 
" Prince of the Powers of the Air " clearly refers to some 
continuation in early Christian thought of a primitive 
Egyptian belief in Pooh the ruler of the realm of storms 
and the overseer of souls in penance. The sun is always 
conceived of in Egyptian theology as the central sphere of 
life and the abode of the mightiest of deities, and all 
planets are regarded as spiritual spheres robed awhile in 
physical habiliments, much as human souls are robed in 
forms of exterior matter during certain periods in their 
history. 

The number 12 figures very largely in Egyptian symbol- 
ism the upper realm of spiritual existence being divided 
into twelve sections, at the entrance to each of which a 
sentinel-divinity is stationed. To each of these gods the 
newly arrived soul must present satisfactory credentials or 
it cannot pass the portal. The twelve sections of the 
higher realm correspond with the twelve day hours, while 
the twelve sections of the lower realm correspond with the 
twelve hours of night ; the holy hours ranging from six 
a. m. to six p. m., the unholy from six p. m. to six a. m. 

The picturesque and highly impressive symbolism con- 
nected with the venerable Sun-worship which found its 
central home in Egypt through many generations, served to 
impress upon the public mind the idea that this is indeed a 
spiritual universe, and though the esoteric theories and 
customs which prevailed among the populace suggested 
geocentric rather than heliocentric astronomy, every student 
of the inscriptions upon the ancient papyri, and the still 



84 Universal Spiritualism 

older monuments, cannot fail to discern a far wiser and im- 
measurably sublimer view of universal order than could 
possibly be gathered from a simple investigation of those 
superficial modes of thought and practice which character- 
ized the belief and practice of the uninitiated multitudes. 
Astronomy and astrology (the two were never separated) 
constituted a vital part of Egyptian theology, for the stars 
were regarded literally as spiritual orbs dressed in material 
garments, a concept which raises the ancient science of as- 
trology to a place of dignity which it can never enjoy in 
modern days until its essential propositions have been en- 
tirely rescued from fanatical and fatalistic accretions. 
Though some authors tell us that the great planets were 
anciently regarded as deities, we may not find sufficient 
grounds for accepting that assertion without some discount. 
A better definition, and one far less liable to serious dis- 
pute, is that the various planets were regarded as homes of 
deities who presided over the life of the worlds placed un- 
der their immediate charge. 

Wm. R. Alger rightly says, "There was much poetic 
beauty and ethical power in these doctrines and symbols. 
The necessity of virtue, the dread ordeals of the grave, the 
certainty of retribution, the mystic circuits of transmigra- 
tion, a glorious immortality, the paths of planets, gods and 
souls through creation, all were impressively enounced 
dramatically shown. The solemn linking of the fate of 
man with the astronomic universe, this grand blending of 
the deepest of moral doctrines with the most august of 
physical sciences, plainly betrays the brain and hand of 
that ancient world." " That such a system of belief was 
too complex and elaborate to have been a popular develop- 
ment is evident, but that it was really held by the people 



The Sp ; ritual Faith of Ancient Egypt 85 

there is no room to doubt. Parts of it were publicly en- 
acted on festival days by multitudes numbering more than 
100,000. Parts of it were dimly shadowed out in the 
secret recesses of temples, surrounded by the most as- 
tonishing accompaniments that unrivalled learning, skill, 
wealth, and power could contrive. Its authority com- 
manded the allegiance, its charm fascinated the imagina- 
tion of the people. Its force built the pyramids, and en- 
shrined whole generations of Egypt's embalmed population 
in richly adorned sepulchres of everlasting rock. Its sub- 
stance of esoteric knowledge and faith, in its form of exo- 
teric exhibition gave it vitality and endurance long. In 
the vortex of change and decay it sank at last, and now it 
is only after its secrets have been buried for thirty centuries 
that the exploring genius of modern times has brought its 
hidden hieroglyphics to light, and taught us what were the 
doctrines originally contained in the altar-lore of those 
priestly schools which once dotted the plains of the Delta, 
and studded the banks of eldest Nile, where now, disfigured 
and gigantic, the solemn 

■ Old Sphinxes lift their countenances bland, 
Athwart the river sea, and sea of sand.' " 



CHAPTER V 

INFLUENCE OF EGYPTIAN THOUGHT ON 
JEWISH VIEWS OF IMMORTALITY 

Though it has been boldly asserted in some quarters on 
many occasions that until after the return of the Jews from 
exile in Babylon, they, as a people, entertained no clearly 
defined belief in a future life, such a declaration appears 
incredible in the light of Israel's general history, and the 
extremely large amount of Egyptian influence which en- 
tered into the composition of early Jewish doctrines. 
Judaism has been from its inception a moral system of faith 
and practice, laying far more stress upon a righteous life 
than upon any amount of simple creed or doctrine, and it 
stands to reason that so eminently ethical a faith as that of 
Israel must appear, in the eyes of many, to undervalue the 
extreme stress laid upon a future existence which has char- 
acterized a very large amount of accepted Christian teach- 
ing. There seems good historical foundation for the time- 
honored tradition that a multitude of Hebrews at one time 
lived under Egyptian rule, and that they at length went 
out of Egypt and gradually established themselves as a 
nation in Palestine. But, as the book of Exodus unmis- 
takably informs us, the people who accomplished their 
exodus at the time of the overthrow of the Pharaonic 
dynasty were a " mixed multitude," by no means exclu- 
sively of Hebrew origin or of Israelitish faith. 

The Old Testament does not seem greatly concerned 
with any definite theories of a future life, though it abounds 
in narratives which, if accepted in any degree literally, 

86 



Jewish Views of Immortality 87 

teach spirit-communion in an unmistakable manner. It 
should never be forgotten that the Mosaic law was intended 
to be a practical guide to life on earth regardless of what 
particular views of a hereafter might be entertained, and 
one of the most palpable reasons for much silence concern- 
ing the future life may have been the excessive attention 
paid to beliefs concerning it by the Egyptians, whose spir- 
itualism had doubtless greatly deteriorated and become 
largely mingled with highly objectionable practices. But 
though it is often urged that the Old Testament is, as a 
whole, at deadly variance with all attempts to communi- 
cate with the spiritual world, such an inference is entirely 
unwarranted, and it has grown out of a most erroneous 
habit of confounding simple spirit-communion with those 
abominable necromantic practices which are degrading 
and revolting in the extreme wherever practiced, and with 
which all that rightfully pertains to spiritualism has never 
had the least affinity. There was never a time when 
prophets in Israel believed only in the possibility of hold- 
ing unlawful intercourse with the unseen spheres, but when 
they most scathingly denounced iniquitous customs, they 
surely condemned them because they were perversions and 
desecrations of faculties and powers which should be 
righteously employed instead of prostituted. Shortly be- 
fore the period of the Exodus, magic in Egypt had so far 
fallen from its primitive high estate that the priests and 
wonder-workers connected with the temples not only often 
resorted to trickery, but frequently endeavored to cast un- 
holy and injurious spells over all who came into collision 
with their schemes and interests ; and as it can never be 
successfully denied that occult agencies are dangerous 
weapons in the hands of the unscrupulous, the prophets in 



88 Universal Spiritualism 

Israel were doubtless actuated by the noblest motives, 
looking to the general welfare, when they vehemently pro- 
tested against wizards, witches, sorcerers, necromancers, 
and all others who were seeking to intimidate the fearful, 
and in some instances to practice the Black Art, which in 
modern France is known as Satanism. 

The trial of strength recorded in the book of Exodus as 
having taken place on the banks of the Nile, between 
Moses and Aaron on one side and Pharaoh's soothsayers on 
the other, is clearly intended to call attention to the dis- 
tinctly doubtful character of all bewildering phenomena 
which are not accompanied or followed by some beneficent 
result. The Bible tells us that equal success, phenomenally 
speaking, was secured by both parties, and it was only 
when the good work of healing the afflicted was to be ac- 
complished that Moses and Aaron triumphed and their 
antagonists met with complete defeat. However valuable 
may be all psychic phenomena from a strictly scientific 
standpoint, as throwing light upon the workings of some 
hidden force in Nature and latent faculty in man, from all 
ethical view-points we must attach value only to that which, 
in some direction at least, is calculated to really confer 
benefit on man or beast. 

Spiritualists to-day, in common with many who do not 
rank themselves in that category, are rapidly arising to a 
sense of responsibility for the sort of phenomena they en- 
courage, and are coming clearly to see that many facts 
may be wonderful yet undesirable. Egypt had had a won- 
derful and glorious past, references to which are made in 
the book of Genesis, which describes a happy situation 
when people of different nationalities and occupations lived 
and worked side by side, cooperating rather than com- 



Jewish Views of Immortality 89 

peting. In those palmy ancient days we are told that 
Pharaoh the Egyptian monarch and Joseph the Hebrew 
counselor worked together in beneficent accord. The 
stress laid upon dreams and their interpretation in that 
older time is specially significant, as it throws a flood of 
light on noteworthy psychic experiences which were then 
and there almost universally credited. To foretell coming 
events through the agency of night visions was no uncom- 
mon experience with seers of old, and though the Pharaohs 
themselves seem not to have been able to clearly define the 
significance of their own visions, they did not hesitate to 
have recourse to interpreters more clairvoyant or clair- 
sentient than themselves. The Hebrew is a psychic race, 
and the Bible deals very largely with incidents in the lives 
of noble prophets which tally closely with much that is 
now exciting scientific interest the wide world over. 

To say that any useful and elevating phase of spiritualism 
is condemned in the Pentateuch is to utter an absurdity, 
though there are laws and precepts therein which de- 
nounce iniquitous practices in unmeasured terms. Legis- 
lation in the ancient Jewish state may have been excessive, 
but its entire tendency was to increase rather than to cur- 
tail liberty. The practice of sorcery was intended to 
wreak vengeance, to work mischief generally, to curse 
one's neighbors or to injure their belongings, and for that 
cause it was placed under the ban. But sorcery has no 
connection with any innocent or normal exercise of any 
psychic gift or spiritual endowment. As the general trend 
of Egyptian belief in a future life was clearly in the inter- 
ests of morality it was not condemned in the Mosaic code, 
and because of its wide-spread acceptance among the peo- 
ple it needed not that any legislator should specially in- 



90 Universal Spiritualism 

struct the masses concerning it. We may fairly infer that 
in early days of Jewish communal life in Palestine the 
prevailing views entertained concerning life beyond the 
grave did not differ radically from those enunciated and 
elaborated in that fascinating compendium of Egyptian 
doctrine, "The Book of the Dead," a fair English trans- 
lation of which, at least in its main features, is published 
both in New York and London. In that marvelous tran- 
script of ancient ceremony and philosophy we find much 
that is in complete accord with the famous Jewish saying, 
" God's people are all the righteous," and we know that 
modern English scholars of high renown, notably Thomas 
Huxley and Matthew Arnold, have laid great stress upon 
the Jewish concept that righteous life alone, not race or 
creed, is a passport to blessedness with the Eternal. 

Egyptian philosophy was in essence monotheistic, with 
a polytheistic accompaniment. The many subordinate 
divinities of Egypt are not necessarily at variance with the 
different orders of Sephiroth acknowledged in the Jewish 
Kabala, and indeed also in the Ninety- fifth Psalm and in 
many other places in Hebrew sacred literature we find the 
Eternal One spoken of as a great King above all gods, 
having supreme dominion over all lesser divinities. 

Much that must appear contradictory to the cursory 
student of the Bible is readily elucidated as soon as we ad- 
mit its distinctly Spiritualistic element. We are told that 
the Supreme Being is always invisible, but God's angels 
are seen by men and hold conversations with them. 
Three angels appear as young men to Abraham, two of 
whom go on to another place while one remains with the 
patriarch. There are but two possible explanations of 
such a narrative ; either the theory that those angels were 



Jewish Views of Immortality 91 

spiritual beings sufficiently materialized for Abraham and 
others to behold them, or that they were inspired men suf- 
ficiently open to spiritual influx to be rightly called God's 
special messengers because they had apprehended spiritual 
order to a much greater extent than ordinary. It seemed 
nothing singular for the spiritual world to break in, so to 
speak, in patriarchal times upon common scenes of daily 
living, yet the actual number of people who were sensitive 
enough to take cognizance of these psychic irruptions 
seems to have been but small. The same mistake is being 
made to-day that was often made of old, viz., that of fail- 
ing to discriminate between lawful use and illicit abuse of 
psychic potencies. A witch meant a poisoner, and partic- 
ularly one who sought to accomplish the ends of malevo- 
lence by invoking the aid of charms and incantations and 
purposely affiliating with such occult influences as could be 
used for evil ends. But the woman at En-dor whom Saul 
consulted, and who declared she saw the departed Samuel, 
is described in the text as only an innocent clairvoyant. 
Much has been made, by commentators averse to Spiritual- 
ism, of the sin of Saul in consulting this woman, whereas 
the narrative itself distinctly shows us that the unhappy 
king's missteps before he went to her had already brought 
him into such condition that, so far as his earthly career 
was concerned, his fate was sealed already, it was there- 
fore in vain that he sought to " disturb " Samuel. 

Samuel had been Saul's counselor on earth for many 
years, but the wayward monarch had time and time again 
rejected the prophet's warning, then, when the conse- 
quences of his repeated errors had made his throne so in- 
secure that it had already virtually slipped from under 
him, Saul in desperation sought to gain an interview with 



92 Universal Spiritualism 

Samuel, hoping to be shown a way to avert an impending 
catastrophe. Samuel could not help Saul to retain his 
earthly throne, for it was then too late to undo the mis- 
chief that had been accomplished. Such is the narrative 
in outline. 

That much-abused story serves to illustrate a mighty 
verity and to enforce a greatly needed moral lesson, that 
we be wise betimes ; but it does not justify any of the dia- 
tribe indulged in by fanatics, who wrest from it its obvious 
ethical instructiveness and misemploy it as a weapon which 
they seek to direct against all attempt at communion with 
friends departed from the range of mortal vision. 

It is indeed true that individual human immortality 
is not very clearly taught in the Old Testament, but it is 
inferred in many places, and Jewish rabbis of ripe scholarly 
attainments have not been lacking through a long course of 
centuries, who have found in original Hebrew texts, of 
which we usually get but very poor translations, what they 
consider conclusive evidence that nothing but the fleshly 
tabernacle was ever believed to pass away or to be des- 
troyed even if a heaven-sent deluge came and swept away 
" all flesh wherein was the breath of life." 

The so-called pessimistic book known as Ecclesiastes, 
though it apparently denies the immortality of the soul, at 
least in the opinion of many of its critics, does not actually 
do more than contrast the inevitable outcome of divers 
ways of living, and in one famous passage, in which it 
seemingly makes man and brute synonymous, it really 
raises the question of who knows enough to discriminate 
between the man and the animal, and who can explain 
why the breath of the one floats upward and the other 
downward when each is living normally. 



Jewish Views of Immortality 93 

Here again we have a recurrence of primitive Egyptian 
teaching. The sensualist and the egotist, even though 
such may have gathered much external information of 
which they are extremely proud, find at length that self- 
indulgence and intellectual conceit yield finally only the 
bitter fruit of weary dissatisfaction. They, on the other 
hand, who have chosen a life of righteousness find peace 
and satisfaction. 

Greek philosophy is present in Ecclesiastes, but much 
Greek thought was continuous from Egypt. "Out of 
Egypt have I called my Son," is a phrase which admits 
of considerable wealth of explanation, for though Egypt 
literally declined and its glory was scattered between 
Greece and Israel, — Persia and Rome were also indebted 
to " Mizraim " for much of their philosophy. That mys- 
tic, ancient land so graphically referred to in Isaiah (es- 
pecially in Chapter XIX) lives to-day not only as a 
monument to departed glory, but as a fruitful field from 
which scholars are now busily gathering information which 
throws enormous light upon the history of the ancient 
world and reveals the roots of much modern philosophy 
and theology freely accepted in Christendom. 

The famous school of Philo of Alexandria embodied 
very much of the ancient Egyptian spirit at its best. Philo 
sought to unite Hebrew with Greek philosophy, combining 
stern righteousness as set forth in an uncompromising 
moral code with the charming beauty with which Hellenic 
thought endowed all with which it came in contact. 

Judaism to-day, with its many schools and parties, 
ranging from extreme orthodoxy to radical reform, still 
preserves many traces of the " ornaments " and other val- 
uables which tradition says the Israelites took out of Egypt. 



94 Universal Spiritualism 

"They spoiled the Egyptians," is not a mere, reference to 
the removal of earthly goods from one country to another. 
The phrase has deeper reference to the passing of Egypt's 
philosophy, together with much ceremonial accompaniment, 
out of the Nile country to the banks of the Jordan. 

Saul of Tarsus, known to the Christian world as Paul the 
Apostle, made multitudinous references in several of his 
epistles to the faith of Egypt, and when he wrote to the 
Corinthians, (Corinth being a Grecian seaport having much 
trade with the Egyptian coast), he refers to the Egyptian 
scriptures far more frequently than to the Hebrew Law. 
If we carefully compare i Cor. 14 with much that is con- 
tained in "The Book of the Dead," we shall find a strik- 
ing similarity between the views expressed in both places 
concerning our inner and outer bodies, and also as touch- 
ing the nature of the resurrection. No hint is given that 
the identical physical robe is to be resumed, but quite the 
contrary, the comparison between the body left behind and 
the body to be made manifest is as between bare grain or 
seed and the fruitage which eventually it yields. 

Some sort of resurrection from the dead has always been 
taught in Israel, but Jewish sages, like the illustrious 
Moses Maimonides, — who in the twelfth century of the 
present era drew up the famous thirteen articles of Jewish 
faith, — have always contented themselves with saying sim- 
ply that the resurrection will be when and as God pleases, 
leaving details completely aside. 

As the Unity of God and a righteous life are the only 
two essentials of Jewish religion, we can well understand 
how natural it is that there can be different parties in 
Jewry and different views on many points and yet Israel can 
remain a solidarity. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE JEWISH KABALA,— ITS TEACHINGS 
CONCERNING IMMORTALITY 

So mysterious a work as the Kabala cannot be reviewed 
as one reviews ordinary literature for the original claim 
made for the Kabala is that it is in every sense a revelation 
to earth from heaven. 

One tradition concerning its origin is that a society of 
angels constitute a Theosophic school in Paradise and that 
they chose seventy elders in Israel as their mouthpieces on 
earth and through those elders alone, it was claimed, a cor- 
rect knowledge of the esoteric meaning of the Torah could 
be obtained. But regardless of legends concerning its 
origin the Kabala is unquestionably a marvelous produc- 
tion well deserving serious attention. Written for the wise 
alone it has seldom occurred that an extensive translation 
into English has been attempted, though a valuable book 
entitled "The Kabbalah Unveiled" was issued by S. I. 
MacGregor Mathers, published by George Redway of 
London in 1887. This fascinating volume was dedicated to 
those two remarkable authors Dr. Anna Kingsford and 
Edward Maitland who were deep students of ancient 
mysteries and producers of really extraordinary literature, 
of which "The Perfect Way or Finding of Christ " is the 
best known portion. The Kabala may reasonably be 
styled the handbook of esoteric Judaism, and though it is 
largely discredited among Jews of the modern school, it is 
unquestionably a source from which many prevailing 
Jewish ideas and ceremonies have emanated. The Kabala 

95 



96 



Universal Spiritualism 



has long exerted an intense fascination for all lovers of the 
profound and the mysterious, and though at first sight its 
claims appear too stupendous, and its introductory prop- 
ositions well nigh bewildering, it thoroughly repays an 
earnest painstaking study conducted in a spirit of impartial 
examination. The twenty-two letters of the Hebrew 
alphabet must be interpreted somewhat mystically before 
one is prepared to read their significance when employed 
Kabalistically. 

The following table may aid all who desire familiarity 
with the outlines of the subject. 





Roman 






Name 


Equivalent 


Significance 


Numerical Value 


Aleph 


A 


Ox 


1 


Beth 


B 


House 


2 


Gimel 


G 


Camel 


3 


Daleth 


D 


Door 


4 


He 


H 


Window 


5 


Vau 


V 


Peg or nail 


6 


Zayin 


Z 


Weapon or sword 


7 


Cheth 


CH 


Enclosure or fence 


8 


Teth 


T 


Serpent 


9 


Yod 


I 


Hand 


10 


Caph 


K 


Palm of hand 


20 


Lamed 


L 


Ox-goad 


30 


Mem 


M 


Water 


40 


Nun 


N 


Fish 


5° 


Samekh 


S 


Prop or support 


60 


Ayin 





Eye 


70 


Pe 


P 


Mouth 


80 


Tzaddi 


TZ 


Fishing-hook 


90 


Qoph 


Q 


Back of the head 


100 


Resh 


R 


Head 


200 


Shin 


SH 


Tooth 


3°° 


Tan 


TH 


Sign of the Cross 


400 



Thousands are denoted by a letter of increased size, thus 
a large Aleph signifies not one, but 1,000. In stating num- 
bers beyond 400 and below 1,000 recourse is had to finals. 



The Jewish Kabala 97 

Final Caph stands for 500. Final Mem for 600. Final 
Nun for 700. Final Pe for 800. Final Tzaddi for 900. 
Students of Kabala declare that the most mystical 
and highly figurative portions of the Old Testament, no- 
tably the books of Daniel and Ezekiel, also the New Testa- 
ment Apocalypse, are quite intelligible when we are fur- 
nished with the Kabalistic Key though without it the in- 
tricate symbols are, to the bulk of readers, meaningless or 
else suggestive of wild and lurid fancies such as are fre- 
quently indulged by would-be interpreters whose particular 
delight is in predicting awful world-wide catastrophies. 
Among European mystics of a recent period in whose eyes 
the Kabala has appeared extremely sacred may be mentioned 
Cornelius Henry Agrippa the famous philosopher and phy- 
sician (1486-1535), John Baptist von Helmont the remark- 
able chemist (15 77-1644), Robert Fludd (1574-1637), 
Dr. Henry More (1614-1687). These highly learned and 
profoundly philosophic men have eulogized the Kabala in 
the strongest and most enthusiastic terms displaying their 
glad acceptance of its claim to a Divine origin. The 
story of the Kabala is an intensely romantic one and one 
that taxes the credulity of modern scholars to almost the 
breaking point. After man's fall from primitive innocence 
into a state of partial alienation from God, though there 
was no longer such close communion of earth with heaven 
as had been enjoyed in the primitive age of man's sojourn 
on this planet, the angels of the Theosophic school in Par- 
adise who were the custodians of the celestial truths re- 
vealed in the Kabala, graciously arranged to communicate 
them through chosen instruments on earth for the ultimate 
good of all humanity. These angels appointed or selected 
certain men as " Protoplasts " beginning with Adam and 



98 Universal Spiritualism 

extending through Noah to Abraham, who is said to have 
emigrated to Egypt where he allowed a certain portion of 
the mysterious doctrine to become approximately public. 
Moses, we are distinctly told in the Bible, was learned in 
all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but though he imbibed 
much instruction in the land of his birth, tradition states 
that it was only during forty years wandering in a wilder- 
ness, and by means of instruction specially imparted by an 
angel, that he became qualified to take the exalted place 
among seers and sages which he has occupied for so many 
centuries in the estimation of a vast number of both Jews 
and Gentiles. 

When considering the interviews of Moses with the Angel 
we are soon led on to familiar Spiritualistic ground, and it 
seems impossible to attach any literal significance whatever 
to much of the Bible narrative without indorsing the sim- 
ple theory that an angel is a spiritual messenger qualified 
and commissioned to impart instruction to selected pupils. 

In four out of the five books which constitute the 
Pentateuch, it is said that the esoteric doctrine which 
Moses imparted to the sacred seventy elders is contained, 
but it is absent from Deuteronomy. We are further told 
by traditional authorities, that David and Solomon carried 
on an unbroken line of Kabalistic tradition, but Kabala 
was not committed to ordinary writing until the days of 
Schimlon Ben Jochai who lived during the period of the 
destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem. Rabbi 
Eleazar, his son, with the assistance of Rabbi Abha, his 
secretary, and some of his disciples, collated the treatises 
of Schimlon Ben Jochai and composed out of them the 
celebrated Zohar, a title meaning splendor. The Kabala 
is usually divided into four sections : Practical, Literal, 



The Jewish Kabala 99 

Unwritten, Dogmatic. The practical portion deals with 
talismans and the general details of ceremonial magic. 
This is kept very secret and is not considered edifying for 
the multitude. The other sections known as the esoteric 
significance of the Law are considered highly profitable for 
Rabbinical edification, and through the Rabbis the congre- 
gation of Israel can be enlightened, and through Israel 
eventually all Gentile nations may be made recipients of 
universal wisdom. 

The principal doctrines of the Kabala are designed to 
solve every problem in the universe beginning with the 
nature and attributes of the Supreme Being. Cosmogony, 
the creation and destiny of angels and men, the nature of 
the soul, descriptions of demons and elementals, the import 
of revealed law, the transcendental symbolism of numbers, 
the mysteries of Hebrew letters and the " equilibrium of 
contraries ' ' are some of the principal topics dealt with in 
the Kabala. 

The " Book of Concealed Mystery " deals with the " equi- 
librium of balance." Equilibrium is said to be "that 
harmony which results from the analogy of contraries." 
It is the central point, the "point within the circle" of 
ancient symbolism, the living synthesis of counter-balanced 
power. Eliphas Levi, an eminent Kabalist of the nine- 
teenth century, says in his "History of Magic" that 
Kabalists have a horror of whatever savors of idolatry ; they 
however ascribe the human form to God, but only hiero- 
glyphically. 

The Kabalistic definition of Deity is " the intelligent, 
living, loving, Infinite One." God is in all, but distinct 
from all, immanent but not inherent in the manifested 
universe. The Kabalistic idea of a trinity as a manifesta- 

LOFC. 



loo Universal Spiritualism 

tion of Deity is of Kether (Crown) Chokmah (King) 
Binah (Queen). The universe is spoken of as "born 
from the union of the crowned King and Queen." Before 
the complete form of the Heavenly Man (the 10 Sephiroth) 
was produced primordial worlds were created, but they 
could not very long subsist because the equilibrium of bal- 
ance was not perfect. ' These are called "Kings of ancient 
time " and " Kings of Edom who reigned before the 
monarchs of Israel." Edom means a world of unbalanced 
• force ; Israel signifies the balanced Sephiroth. 

The archetypal world (Olahm Atziloth) gave birth to 
three other worlds in a descending or decreasing scale of 
brightness. The second world is termed Olahm Ha-Briah 
or world of creation, an immediate emanation from the 
first, a realm of pure spirit. The third world is called 
Olahm Ha-Yetzirah, the world of formation and abode of 
angels who are draped in luminous substance and who 
appear in human form when they communicate with men. 
The fourth world is designated Olahm Ha- Asian or world 
of action. Here are to be found the Demons or " Shells " 
which are the grossest and most deficient of all exist- 
ences. There are ten varieties of Demons answering to 
the decade of the Sephiroth, but in inverse ratio. The 
Demons have a prince named Samael, the original of Satan. 
Kabalists lay great stress upon the unpronounceableness of 
the true name of Deity by the multitude, the secret of 
its pronunciation being the greatest of secrets known only 
to a very few illustrious initiates. 

The famous saying, " He who rightly pronounceth the 
Divine Name causeth heaven and earth to tremble, for this 
is the name which rusheth throughout the Universe " ac- 
counts for the fact that no devout orthodox Jew will 



The Jewish Kabala 101 

attempt to pronounce the name formed from the sacred 
consonants Yod, Heth, Vau, Heth, but makes a slight 
pause or substitutes Adonai, which is customary when read- 
ing from the scrolls in synagogues. The ineffable Name 
has twelve transpositions, all conveying the same meaning, 
"to be." It is the only name that will bear so many 
transpositions without involving a change of meaning. 

These twelve transpositions are called " banners of the 
mighty Name " and have a reference to the twelve signs of 
the Zodiac which are also the twelve major sections into 
which the human body is divisible. 

The Sephiroth of the Kabala are called both persons and 
attributes of God, some of which are male and some 
female, for no Kabalist ever does violence to the central 
truth of the equality of male with female in Divinity. 

The clear teaching of the first chapter of Genesis (vide, 
verses 26, 27, 28) is never forsaken for a false interpreta- 
tion of the second chapter which has long obscured the 
true idea of the union of masculine and feminine in the 
eternal Godhead as set forth in all esoteric treatises. 
While we cannot possibly understand a trinity of three ex- 
clusively male personages at the root of a creation which 
displays male and female expressions of life conjointly, we 
can in some measure comprehend the idea of a Divine 
Father and Mother begetting offspring. In the Kabalah 
the "Ancient of Days " is expressed as Father and 
Mother and thus begets the Child. In Egypt the concept 
of Osiris and Isis begetting Horus, and Horus being pre- 
sented for contemplation under a dual aspect of son and 
daughter, agrees exactly with the entire teaching of the 
Kabala which is, in main features, scarcely distinguishable 
from the Hermetic philosophy which at one time had its 



102 Universal Spiritualism 

home in Egypt. The ten Sephiroth are divided into three 
divisions called Pillars. The right-hand pillar is Mercy ; 
the left-hand pillar is Justice or Judgment ; the middle 
pillar is Mildness. In their total unity the ten Sephiroth 
signify the Archetypal Man, Adam Kadmon, the Protag- 
anos. In the form of the human body is found the Te- 
tragrammaton. The sacred letters Yod, Heth, Vau, Heth, 
are distributed as follows : The head is Yod ; the arms 
and shoulders are the first Heth ; the trunk of the body is 
Vau ; the lower limbs are the second Heth. In consider- 
ing the three great divisions of the inner life of humanity — 
Neshamah, Ruach, Nephesh — the first is the spiritual 
realm, the second the rational, the third the sensuous. 
All souls are declared preexistent in the archetypal world 
and are in their original state androgynous, but when in- 
carnate upon earth they are separated into male and female 
and inhabit different bodies. The doctrine of counter- 
parts is clearly taught in the Kabala, but there is no sug- 
gestion given anywhere that one expression of the soul — 
male or female — is any sense superior or inferior to the 
other. 

Eliphas Levi in his dissertations upon the Kabala drew 
the following inferences concerning the nature of the soul. 
The soul is a veiled light ; this light is triple. Neshamah 
is pure spirit ; Ruach is the rational soul ; Nephesh is the 
plastic vehicle. Nephesh is immortal only through de- 
struction and renewal of forms. Ruach progresses through 
the evolution of ideas. Neshamah is without forgetfulness 
and not susceptible to dissolution. The book of Ecclesi- 
astes read in the light of the Kabala no longer appears sad 
or pessimistic for the various questions it raises and the 
statements it makes are all intelligible and acceptable when 



The Jewish Kabala 103 

we are aware of the differing planes of consciousness and 
states of existence to which the analytical preacher so 
searchingly refers. Souls when perfected on earth pass to 
ether planets and eventually they reach the sun ; then 
they ascend to a superior universe and begin another 
career from planet to planet and from sun to sun. In the 
suns they remember all their experiences, but in the planets 
they seemingly forget. Solar lives are days of eternal life 
and planetary lives are nights in which the soul dreams. 
Angels are luminous emanations personified by divine in- 
fluence and reflex. . . . Angels desire to become men 
for the perfect man is above all angels. Planetary lives 
are composed of ten dreams each lasting for one hundred 
years. Each solar life lasts one thousand years, therefore ■ 
is it said that in God's sight one thousand years is as one 
day. Every " week," /. <?., every fourteen thousand years 
the soul " bathes itself and reposes in the jubilee dream." 
On awaking from which it remembers only good, for good 
alone is worthy of remembrance. Spinoza was a deep 
student of the Kabala and in his Ethics summed up its 
teachings with much insight and ability. Among Spinoza's 
definitions the following are especially luminous : "By 
the Being who is the Cause and Governor of all things, I 
understand AinSoph (Supreme Wisdom) infinite, without 
attributes." "By Sephiroth, I understand the potencies 
which emanate from the Absolute, all entities limited by 
quantity." "AinSoph is both immanent and transcend- 
ent." "The Sephiroth are emanations not creations." 
" As AinSoph is perfect the Sephiroth proceeding there- 
from must also be perfect." The great mystery of Ma- 
croprosopus and Microposopus, the greatest and least 
countenances, is elaborately treated in the Book of Con- 



104 Universal Spiritualism 

cealed Mystery which few modern scholars attempt to ex- 
plain though, to all who are disposed to search for profound 
verities below the surface or behind the veil of archaic 
symbolism, it is a treasure-house of wisdom rich beyond 
compare. In the books of Greater and Lesser Holy As- 
sembly studious Christians will find the roots of the doc- 
trine of the Trinity and indeed of practically all the mystic 
doctrines which the esoteric Christian Church has dogmat- 
ically formulated, insisting upon their acceptance by the 
multitude to whom they are indeed unexplained and seem- 
ingly inexplicable mysteries. The great offense of dogmatic 
theologians has been the persistence with which they have 
forced dogmas upon the masses as necessary to salvation 
while the Kabala only sets forth propositions and condemns 
no one who fails to comprehend them. The "Three 
Heads" are alluded to frequently in the Kabala and it is 
not difficult to surmise from what source the Athanasian 
fathers derived their precise definitions concerning a 
trinity of persons though God is absolute unity. 

How widely different is the Kabalistic view from the 
perverted doctrine which multitudes of Christians have 
unthinkingly accepted on the basis of alleged authority is 
clearly evident when we find in the Kabala no threats of 
damnation for those who fail to perceive a truth veiled in 
august mystery, but only a statement is made that as the 
soul advances in enlightenment it comes to perceive a truth 
" hidden from the foundation of the world." 

Were the Anthanasian creed revised by enlightened 
Kabalists its so-called "damnatory" clauses would be 
greatly changed, for instead of implying that souls " perish 
everlastingly" if they do not endorse a mysterious doc- 
trine, the Kabala declares that as man becomes increas- 



The Jewish Kabala 105 

ingly illumined or regenerate he gradually comes to an un- 
derstanding of mystic verities, the knowledge of which is 
an evidence of an advanced stage in the progress of illu- 
mination or regeneration. There is no perdition taught in 
the Kabala, but on the contrary only a continual rising of 
the soul from sphere to sphere, casting off error and re- 
taining truth alone. Enigmatical the language of the 
Kabala may be, cruel and unreasonable it decidedly is not. 
As Swedenborg in his voluminous treatises revived the 
similitude of the Human Form as the form of all the 
heavens, and his theological works, in particular, are in- 
dustriously circulated by his admirers to-day, the language 
of the Kabala is gradually becoming measurably familiar 
to the general public. We have no space in this volume 
for further discussion of it, but we commend a perusal of 
this marvelous and fascinating literature to all students 
who have leisure and disposition to peer beneath the sur- 
face of familiar Scripture, to divine the deeper truths 
which long have been veiled beneath the guise of seem- 
ingly but doubtful ancient history. 



CHAPTER VII 

PERSIAN THEORIES OF THE SOUL AND 
ITS DESTINATION 

Though to-day if we wish to learn of Parseeism, the 
origin of which is attributed to Zoroaster, we must visit 
India rather than Persia, and seek for information in Bom- 
bay, where a famous Parsee colony has enjoyed an un- 
broken continuity of existence for over 1,200 years, it is to 
a still remoter period than that which marks the founda- 
tion of that ancient and venerable colony that we must 
turn if we would inspect any of the roots of the still flow- 
ering tree of Parseeism, a religion which disputes the 
palm for antiquity with even its eldest contemporaries. 
The story of Zoroaster, the reputed founder of the Parsee 
faith, is veiled in considerable mystery, and until quite 
recently scholars have had much difficulty in attempting 
to reconcile seemingly conflicting dates, which have been 
found so divergent as to prove ultimately irreconcilable on 
any basis of belief that there has been but one great teacher 
in all time who has borne the title of Zoroaster, as his 
period has been placed as early as the days of the Jewish 
Abraham and as late as the time of the Greek Pythagoras. 
It is now beginning to be understood that there has been a 
long line of highly enlightened spiritual teachers, running 
through the ages, and that Zoroaster is a title of dignity 
rather than a proper name. 

That very instructive writer and lecturer on theosophy, 
Annie Besant, has in one of her many books, " Four Great 

106 



Persian Theories of the Soul 107 

Religions," sought to explain how one after another, as 
the ages have rolled by, highly illumined teachers have 
appeared on the stage of the world's great theatre and im- 
parted instruction specially adapted to the times and places 
when and where they have ministered, then left the good 
seed they had sown and watered to germinate and bear 
fruit, which it always does at the end of a cycle, at which 
time there is demand for another great enlightener who 
comes in his turn as his predecessors have come and gone 
before him. 

According to this theory, which is authenticated by 
almost universal testimony furnished by students of the 
Mysteries the wide world over, we have swept away the 
major portion of the perplexing difficulty concerning 
Zoroaster and have found that Parseeism is founded, like 
many other ancient systems of religion and philosophy, 
not upon one sole teacher but upon a succession of spiritual 
enlighteners who, according to universal theosophy, are 
commissioned by celestial guardians of this planet's destiny 
to convey to a special section of this earth's inhabitants 
such portions and aspects of heavenly wisdom as they are 
ready to receive, assimilate and propagate. Though Par- 
seeism is not an ideal system as we find it expounded by 
its best known modern exponents, and some of its doc- 
trines, as set forth by its appointed delegate from Bombay 
at the World's Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 
1893, seem inferior to the highest inculcations of prophetic 
Judaism and Christian Universalism, we must admit that 
the sacred books of the Parsees termed Zend-Avesta 
abound in excellent teachings, and also present a view of 
good and evil far more reasonable than that which over- 
spread beclouded Europe in the mediaeval period, and 



108 Universal Spiritualism 

which still survives as a blighting element in orthodox 
phases of Christianity. 

We hear and read much of dualism whenever we hear 
of the Parsee or Iranian religion, but the dualistic theories 
of all Zoroastrians are resolvable into an original and ulti- 
mate monism, because the contending forces of good and 
evil, even when these are personified in their respective 
fountain-heads, Ormuzd and Ahriman, are only finite and 
temporal. There is no such absurd belief as faith in 
sempiternal evil in the Parsee creed or doctrine, for it 
teaches that Ormuzd and Ahriman are brothers who have 
• had a dispute and are now engaged in works of diametric- 
ally opposite character, but as the two sprang from one 
source so they will return to the state of harmony which 
was originally their blissful portion and from which they 
have fallen, not everlastingly, but only for a limited pe- 
riod. 

The Persian Ahriman and the Hebrew Satan (Accuser) 
are so practically identical that we may well discover 
traces of Parseeism in the book of Job, one of the most 
instructive and comforting of all the books which make up 
the Hebrew Bible. This book of Job commended itself 
very largely to the sympathies of Thomas Paine, who 
alludes to it in a friendly spirit in that much abused 
treatise, "The Age of Reason," which contains many as- 
saults upon much that the Bible contains but never calls 
in question the unity of God or denies a good hope of 
human immortality. 

If Milton* when he wrote "Paradise Lost" was not 
familiar with the Zend-Avesta, he at least shows familiarity 
with much of its incidental teaching, though the English 
poet never rose high enough in his theology to reach the 



Persian Theories of the Soul 109 

spiritual altitudes which are the peaks and crowns of the 
Zoroastrian faith. The Christian apostle Paul, who was a 
classic as well as Hebrew scholar, shows much familiarity 
with the essentials of the Iranian as well as of the Egyptian 
religion in his noblest utterances, for after having con- 
ceded to the "powers of darkness" all that any well-in- 
structed Parsee would attempt to claim, he launches forth 
into those glorious and magnificent declarations of faith in 
the perfect triumph of infinite goodness which are simply 
paralyzing to all believers in the possibility of the ultimate 
victory being gained, even in a single instance, by any 
spirit which opposes itself to the rule of the perfect right- 
eousness which dwells at the centre of the universe. 

Even Robert Browning's perfect optimism as expressed 
in " Abt Vogler " is none too grand for a consistent Parsee 
to endorse, for should one make an earnest and searching 
study of the Zend-Avesta he might well rise from his re- 
searches with the jubilant exclamation on his lips, " There 
shall never be one lost good, and for evil so much good 
more." Browning may speak of a few "musicians " into 
whose ears divine secrets are specially whispered, but who are 
those sublimely privileged and singularly enlightened ones 
but they who have learned the mighty lesson of transmuta' 
tion, and have indeed resolved discords into harmonies, 
thereby proving that evil is only misplaced good, that evil 
is a state or condition only, never a fundamental reality or 
an essential of universal life. 

Quite a number of modern metaphysicians would be 
helped to greater clarity of statement if they would study 
the Parsee doctrine which, when rescued from degenerate 
accretions, is found to be an ambitious, and by no means 
unsuccessful, attempt to explain the origin, nature and 



Ho Universal Spiritualism 

destiny of relative discord in a universe which is absolutely 
good at core and in essence. 

To give some idea of the antiquity of the fame of 
Zoroaster we have only to be reminded that Pliny, agree- 
ing with Aristotle, asserts that Zoroaster flourished 6,000 
years before Plato. Gibbon, Volney, -and many other dis- 
tinguished historians concur largely in this view, which, 
as we have already intimated, is easily accepted on the 
basis suggested by Annie Besant and other theosophical in- 
terpreters; for when we consider that several illustrious 
.teachers have borne the same high appellation among the 
followers of the doctrines they proclaimed, we should not 
be staggered if we discovered statements to the effect that 
Zoroaster lived even 100,000 years ago, perchance in the 
mighty island-continent Atlantis, which was probably in 
the height of its glory while the lands we now call ancient 
were resting beneath the ocean waves, precisely as Atlantis 
is now slumbering. Many historians have assigned Zoro- 
aster to a period as recent as about 700 b. c, when no doubt 
some great enlightenment came to the Iranians and a revival 
of ancient wisdom took place among them, led by a special 
master-guide. However ancient may have been its origin, 
or however comparatively modern, it is certain that 
Parseeism flourished in the Babylonian Empire and that 
Judaism was largely tinctured with it during the time of 
the Babylonian Exile. 

Portions of the book of Isaiah were undoubtedly written 
after the Jews had returned from Babylon to Palestine, and 
the author who is often styled " the second Isaiah " (vide 
Isaiah 45) protested vehemently against the infiltration of 
Babylonian doctrines into the Jewish creed, at least in so 
far as those tenets were out of harmony with the simple 



Persian Theories of the Soul 1 1 1 

faith of ancient Israel, which admitted no rival with God 
upon the throne of the universe. Though much of the 
ancient history of Zoroastrianism may be draped in un- 
certainty, scholars have not encountered anything like 
insuperable difficulties in their endeavors to trace the 
history of the Parsee faith during the Christian era. 

Max Miiller — whose monumental contributions to the 
science of comparative religion and philology entitle him to 
rank among the very greatest scholars of the nineteenth 
century — has thrown much light on this interesting subject 
in the course of his elaborate commentaries upon the 
various sacred writings of the East, and to his voluminous 
and fascinating works we advise all of our readers to turn 
who have both desire and leisure to pursue their studies to 
a far greater length than is possible for those whose occu- 
pation is such that they can only find time for a study of 
the briefest condensations. For our immediate purpose we 
need only refer to a few important facts which throw light 
upon the special subject we are now considering. In the 
fourth century b. c, Alexander of Macedon overran the 
Persian Empire and with his rule the old faith and ritual 
declined or became obscure. In the following centuries 
this decadence became more and more marked, and it was 
not till about 700 years later that a great revival of 
Parseeism occurred ; this was in the days of Ardeshir, who 
overthrew the Parthian dominion in Persia and established 
the Sassanian dynasty. To quote the words of William 
Alger, " One of his first acts was, stimulated doubtless by 
the surviving Magi and the old piety of the people, to 
teinaugurate the ancient religion. A fresh zeal of loyalty 
broke out, and all the prestige and vigor of the long- 
suppressed worship were restored." 



1 1 2 Universal Spiritualism 

The ZorQastrian Scriptures were now sought for, whether 
in manuscript or in the memories of the priests. It would 
seem that only remnants were found. The collection, such 
as it was, was in the Avestan dialect, which had grown 
partially obsolete and unintelligible. The authorities ac- 
cordingly had a translation made of it in the speech of 
the time, Tehlevi. This translation — most of which has 
reached us written in the original, sentence after sentence 
— forms the real Zend language, often confounded by the 
literary public with Avestan. The translation of the 
• Avestan books, probably made under these circumstances 
as early as 350 a. d. is called the " Huzva-resch. " It 
is probably from this source rather than from one of 
greater antiquity that floating theories concerning the 
original Parsee faith are commonly drawn, therefore it 
would be unwise to speak dogmatically, when scanning 
such translations, concerning the highest and purest con- 
cepts of a remote original. 

To quote once more from William Alger, ' ' The source 
from which the fullest and clearest knowledge of the Zoro- 
astrian faith, as it is now held by the Parsees, is drawn, is 
the Desatir and the Bundehesh. The former work is the 
unique vestige of an extinct dialect called the Mahabadian, 
accompanied by a Persian translation and commentary. 
It is impossible to ascertain the century when the Mahaba- 
dian text was written : but the translation into Persian was, 
most probably, in the seventh century of the present era." 
After descanting upon the improbability that those specula- 
tions are well-founded which seek to attribute the teach- 
ings of modern Parseeism to Jewish, Christian, or even 
later Mohammedan origins, Dr. Alger proceeds to summar- 
ize the tenets of Magian theology and from that summary 



Persian Theories of the Soul 1 13 

("A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life," 
pages 133 et seq.) we have compiled the following ex- 
tremely abbreviated narrative. In the deep background of 
Magian theology there looms belief in an infinite first 
Principle-Zeruana Akerana, the meaning of which is Ab- 
solute Duration or Indivisible One. But the beginning of 
vital theology furnishing the actual ethics of Zoroastrian- 
ism is the idea of the antagonistic forces — Ormuzd and 
Ahriman — which constitute the first emanation from the 
Absolute. These are said to divide between them the un- 
resting striving of the universe. Ormuzd is the principle 
of light ; Ahriman is the principle of darkness. From Or- 
muzd proceed all virtue and all beauty; from Ahriman 
proceed all wickedness and deformity. There is some 
dispute as to whether these antagonistic powers have al- 
ways been at variance ; different views have doubtless pre- 
vailed at different times, the more pessimistic theories be- 
longing, no doubt, to an age of spiritual declension and 
mental obscuration, the more optimistic ground having 
been always taken by the more enlightened in intellect and 
the more advanced in spirituality among the numerous ex- 
ponents of Zoroastrianism who have risen from age to age, all 
claiming to interpret the original faith no matter how 
widely, in some instances, their commentaries may have 
departed from it. 

Dr. Alger holds to the view entertained by clear-sighted 
students in general and emphasized most powerfully and 
beautifully by Marie Caithness, Duchesse de Pomar, in her 
splendid treatise, " The Mystery of the Ages, Contained in 
the Secret Doctrine of All Religions," in which valuable 
volume we are informed, on the basis of deep spiritual in- 
sight coupled with profound scholarly research, that un- 



l 14 Universal Spiritualism 

corrupted Parseeism teaches that Ormuzd and Ahriman are 
indeed true brothers, originally harmonious, but during a 
long age called a Gahambar they are in a state of active 
antagonism, though when the cycle ends they will become 
fully reconciled, then Pralaya or the Golden Age will re- 
sult from their return to harmony. 

Dr. Alger does not omit to trace the close connection 
which certainly exists between Ahriman and the Satan of 
the book of Job, which is a splendid epic poem, intended 
to set forth the glorious ancient doctrine that no spirit of 
evil in reality exists, as Satan (or the Accusing Angel) is 
only a messenger of Heaven and receives a commission 
from the Most High, or he could work nothing among 
the inhabitants of earth. Job personifies the typical 
human soul, individualized in every human being, and as 
the poetic narrative most clearly shows, its author's object 
was to convince all readers that nothing befalls humanity 
except for ultimate good and when we see what looks to us 
like unmitigated disaster we are, in our temporary blind- 
ness, misinterpreting some perplexing phenomena which 
will yet be explained to us as a part of our education, a 
means of discipline the outcome of which will be a glorious 
and wonderful enlightenment, impossible of achievement 
except through its seemingly evil though, in reality, benig- 
nant agency. 

The Parsee delegate at the World's Parliament of Re- 
ligions had no hesitation in telling the multitudes who 
heard his speech or read the published report of it, that 
Parsees to-day believe that every noxious creature and 
poisonous plant is the work of Ahriman, while all that is 
amiable and wholesome is the work of Ormuzd. This is 
an easy disposition of phenomena, and it may not be an 



Persian Theories of the Soul 115 

incorrect statement! but even though Ormuzd and Ahri- 
man have each created a multitude of emissaries and sent 
them forth to people this material globe, the ultimate ques- 
tion of the final outworking of all for good remains quite 
undisturbed. All that we have need to consider, even if we 
accept this popular version of Parsee doctrine, is a method 
by means of which the goal is reached, the object finally 
accomplished. 

The Parsees' teaching that every soul embodied on earth 
is attended by a light and dark unseen attendant, (a ferver 
and a dev) and that every star is peopled with spirits of 
light and darkness, is in complete accord with the almost 
universal opinion of mankind, though such a doctrine is 
easily subject to so much rational modification that it may 
eventually be accepted, as already taught in many schools 
of theosophy, only in the sense that light is positive and 
symbolizes wisdom, while darkness is negative and symbol- 
izes ignorance. Gerald Massey's able pamphlet, " The Devil 
of Darkness," bears a title which throws much light on the 
primal question which still sorely perplexes the bulk of en- 
quirers into* the nature of the universe — Whence cometh 
evil ? We cannot falter in our own allegiance to the blessed 
concept that absolutely good is all in all, and we find 
nothing, even in Persian Dualism, to shake our confidence 
in the truth of that mighty declaration, nor do we discover 
any historic evidence that any truly illumined teacher ever 
taught the contrary. Only a corrupted priesthood allied 
with a similarly corrupted temporal power ever invented 
the false, hideous, irrational dogma of an endless, and there- 
fore useless, hell together with the insane and frightful no- 
tion that God was an angry tyrant who doomed a large 
portion of his own creation to everlasting misery. The 



Ii6 Universal Spiritualism 

nightmare theology which seeks to enslave and terrify the 
world with such atrocious fictions may have its origin in 
the dark land of shades, in which the unenlightened dwell 
until they have risen out of the murky shadows in which 
their ignorance and ill-will may have plunged them ; but 
never once has a radiant messenger from any sphere of 
light suggested anything to humanity which casts a slur on 
the character of the Almighty, or that leads sensitive 
natures to despair, while it arouses the worst passions of the 
• cruel and the relentless. We make no apology for con- 
demning the doctrine of endless or perpetual evil, whether 
personified or not, as an insult to intelligence as well as a 
flagrant contradiction of all that enlightened morality is 
willing to accept. That there are unsolved problems and 
mighty mysteries in the universe no sane thinker will for 
an instant dispute, but to make capital out of these for the 
purpose of exploiting a doctrine of sempiternal evil is a 
crime against humanity and an insult to our common sense. 
The precise views which Zoroastrians entertain concern- 
ing the future life are rather difficult to describe in limited 
space, but it may safely be decided that there is an idea of 
purgatory among them, and also some idea of hell, though 
not necessarily any idea which is at variance with the 
ultimate salvation of every spirit in the universe. Parsee- 
ism, in common with practically every other religion, teaches 
concerning a great variety of states or conditions in the world 
beyond death, and, as Dante has taught in the Divine 
Comedy, if it take four or five centuries, or even longer, to 
purge a soul from the dross of avarice, envy, or any other 
stain, so long must it be subjected to some cleansing dis- 
cipline called " purgatorial fire." The root of the doctrine 
of purgatory is found in all religious systems, and if it be 



Persian Theories of the Soul 1 1 7 

separated from all belief in damnation, with which the 
thought of purgation is never properly allied, it may well 
be accepted as a means of illustrating the consequences of 
error, and the purifying ends of penalty. 

Having already taken a glance at Egyptian eschatology, 
we find Persian views of life beyond death extremely 
similar and we must not forget that after the overthrow of 
the Pharaonic or native Egyptian dynasty Egypt became 
subject to Persia, consequently the religious beliefs and 
symbols of both nations became greatly intermingled. 
The bull, always greatly venerated in ancient Egypt, looms 
large upon the Persian horizon, the origin of all manifested 
life being presented under the figure of that powerful 
animal. Among Persian practises throwing light upon the 
popular belief concerning the future life, is the ancient 
" Festival of the Dead," which is still celebrated by 
Parsees during the last five days of every year, at which 
season it is believed that the sinners in the spirit-world who 
are undergoing expiatory penalties proportioned to their 
offenses, are permitted to visit their relatives and friends 
who are yet on earth, after which respite those who are 
not sufficiently purified to pass on to Paradise must re- 
turn to "Dutsakh." Annually, it is taught, " Ormuzd 
empties hell," and at this great solar feast (observed by 
all Occult Societies the world over, which can boast of 
any respectable antiquity) multitudes are finally released 
from the shadows of Hades and conducted to brighter 
realms on their way to the ultimate bliss of Heaven. 

To every student of comparative religion who is not 
swayed by prejudice, the striking similarity of one creed to 
another must prove convincing that prevailing Christian 
doctrines are all derived from earlier sources, and that 



1 1 8 Universal Spiritualism 

this is the case the gospel narratives themselves, most clearly 
testify. In the Apostle's Creed (usually regarded as the 
oldest, as well as the simplest and concisest, of all the creeds 
of Christendom) the much- disputed passage (which some 
Protestants disapprove of and omit), " He descended into 
hell," shows unmistakably the complete sympathy which 
existed between primitive Christianity, which was highly 
eclectic, and other older and widely prevailing faiths. 

Again do we insist that in their original purity or sim- 
plicity all religious systems taught the purification of de- 
parted souls, through suffering indeed whenever such is 
necessary, but never final extinction or, what is far worse, 
endless misery. The Parsees of old declared that the 
present order of the world was fixed at 12,000 years 
duration, divided into four equal parts. During the first 
three thousand years Ormuzd reigns triumphantly, during 
the second three thousand years Ahriman reigns. The 
third three thousand years is occupied in strife between 
them, and the fourth three thousand years is to be a period 
of Ahriman's victory, when the earth will be the scene of 
all manner of awful tragedies. This dark period will, 
however, be triumphantly overcome, for Ormuzd will rise 
in majestic might and put a complete stop to all calamities 
and all atrocities. Ormuzd will send to earth a saviour, 
Gosiosch, to deliver mankind and to bring the arch-enemy 
to judgment. Then comes the resurrection, when all the 
departed will reappear and friends will gladly recognize 
each other. Great difference of opinion among scholars 
still prevails as to the exact nature of the resurrection, but 
all agree that Parseeism teaches individual immortality. 

Every doctrine taught in Christendom concerning the 
disobedience and fall of man can be found paralleled in 



Persian Theories of the Soul 119 

Parseeism. Though it seems fairly clear that Dualism is 
inextricably interwoven with the Zoroastrian faith, Rawlin- 
son argues — and sustains his argument by powerful proofs 
— that the Dualistic doctrine was a heresy which broke out 
among primitive Aryans who were the ancestors of subse- 
quent Iranians and Indians. It is contended, almost 
universally, that the Jewish Scriptures are honey-combed 
with Persian doctrines but the only book in the Old 
Testament which lays any clear stress upon the doctrine of 
resurrection is Daniel, which is replete with Chaldean and 
Persian allusions. This apocalyptic treatise (which the 
book called Revelation or Apocalypse in the New Testa- 
ment strongly resembles) is usually attributed to a period 
not earlier than 200 b. c. The spiritual idea of the 
resurrection which prevailed among thoughtful and edu- 
cated Zoroastrians in the days of the famous Plutarch is 
clearly shown in his quotation from Theopompus who gives 
it as the opinion of the Magi that when Ahriman is sub- 
dued and men are restored to life "they will need no 
nourishment and cast no shadow." Such is undoubtedly 
the original Magian doctrine and it comports well with 
the idea of a purely spiritual body not dependent upon 
material elements for sustenance and not subject to the 
limitations of time and space. 

Every reader is doubtless familiar with the Towers of 
Silence, the Parsee burying places, and many travelers 
have seen them. The dead body is not permitted to be 
thrown into water or fire or to be buried in the earth lest it 
contaminate an element, it is therefore placed at a high 
elevation above the ground and subjected to the action of 
birds of prey, which Parsees believe have a necessary 
mission to fulfil and are properly endowed with a taste for 



120 Universal Spiritualism 

carrion. The dead body is treated with no indignity by 
these scrupulously cleanly people who make cleanliness an 
essential part of their religion. Bodies are placed in dry, 
pure, open places upon a summit where fresh winds blow 
and the vultures which devour the flesh, leaving the bones 
completely harmless, are accounted sacred. 

Though there is much attributed to Parseeism which is 
not altogether charming, a stern sense of justice, coupled 
with a proclamation to the effect that righteousness alone 
will eventually triumph, runs through all doctrines which 
claim Zoroaster and the Zend-Avesta for their source. At 
the time of judgment a complete separation will be made 
between the virtuous and the vicious, but though the latter 
will be condemned to penal sufferings their anguished cries 
will rise to heaven and find pity in the soul of Ormuzd, 
who will eventually release all from their sufferings. The 
awful words in a Christian gospel, attributed to Jesus, 
" Depart ye cursed into everlasting (aionian) fire, prepared 
for the devil and his angels," though by no means delight- 
ful reading, are susceptible, and that without the slightest 
straining, of a reasonable and even a benevolent meaning, 
for we have a right to challenge theologians to debate the 
question : For what purpose is the fire prepared ? Who 
shall dare to deny that a just Deity has wisely prepared it 
for the express purpose of purifying and enlightening those 
who are unclean and dark in their spiritual condition ? 
Fire enters largely as a highly expressive symbol into all 
religions, and as fire accomplishes on earth three useful 
and beneficent ends — it enlightens, it warms and it puri- 
fies — we have not the slightest right or reason to suppose 
that Zoroaster, Jesus, or any enlightened spiritual teacher 
or Messiah at any time in the world's history, ever in- 



Persian Theories of the Soul 121 

tended to teach any other doctrine than the ultimate en- 
lightenment and purification of every individual spirit in 
the universe. 

Parseeism is essentially in union with Universalism, and 
though the Universalists of to-day would probably refuse 
to endorse a good deal they might find in ancient Parsee 
documents, they have publicly announced in two great 
sentences, included in the Confession of Faith of the 
American Universalist denomination, their complete 
agreement with the essence of Zoroastrianism, for they pro- 
fess belief in the certainty of retribution, and the final har- 
mony of all souls with God. Here we have arrived at a 
complete synthesis of acceptable spiritual philosophy and 
no matter how widely some of us may differ among our- 
selves as to the means whereby universal harmony may be 
effected, we can all endorse the noble sentiment voiced by 
Hosea Ballou, the father of American Universalism, in a 
still popular hymn : 

" In God's eternity, 
There shall a day arise 
When all of Adam's race shall be 
With Jesus in the skies." 

And equally in the glorious words of Epes Sargent, the 
stalwart Spiritualist, which are also found in many well- 
compiled hymnals : 

" The soul that sinneth, it shall surely die, — 
Die to the sin that did its life confine." 

Again quoting from Dr. Alger, we will sum up our all 
too superficial glance at the Parsee faith. In the follow- 
ing sentences we behold a glorious picture of the future 



122 Universal Spiritualism 

which awaits our planet and its multitudinous inhabitants : 
" The earth-wide stream of fire, flowing on, will cleanse 
every spot and everything. Even the loathsome realm of 
darkness and torment shall be humbled and made a part 
of the all-inclusive Paradise. Ahriman himself, reclaimed 
to virtue, replenished with primal light, abjuring the mem- 
ories of his envious ways, and furling thenceforth the sable 
standard of his rebellion, shall become a ministering spirit 
of the Most High, and together with Ormuzd, shall chant 
the praises of Time-without-Bounds. All darkness, false- 
hood, suffering, shall flee utterly away, and the whole uni- 
verse be filled by the illumination of good spirits blessed 
with functions of eternal delight. In regard to the fate of 
man — 

" Such are the parables Zartusht addressed 
To Iran's faith, in ancient Zend-Avest." 

To this sublime picture we invite the earnest, prayerful 
attention of every benighted traveler along earth's high- 
way, who doubts that " Good will be the final goal of ill." 
Universal salvation is the only salvation conceivable in a 
sane universe, and it has been the glorious mission of 
modern, as of ancient, Spiritualism to proclaim this blessed 
truth, not only as a postulate of philosophy or a reasonable 
religious faith, but as a demonstrated certainty based upon 
progressive life in the immortal spheres of Spirit. 



CHAPTER VIII 

GREEK AND ROMAN VIEWS OF A 
FUTURE LIFE 

Once more acknowledging indebtedness to the splendid 
work of Dr. Alger, from which we have already quoted 
freely, we again present our readers with a fine descriptive 
passage from "A Critical History of the Doctrine of a 
Future Life," (pages 175-6), as it serves our purpose so 
exactly at this particular juncture in our progressive nar- 
rative. u The disembodied soul, as conceived by the 
Greeks, and after them by the Romans, is material, but of 
so thin a contexture that it cannot be felt with the hands. 
It is exhaled with the dying breath, or issues through a 
warrior's wounds. The owner passes through its unin- 
jured form as through the air. It is to the body what a 
dream is to waking existence. Retaining the shape, line- 
aments and motion the man had in life, it is immediately 
recognized upon appearing. It quits the body with much 
reluctance, leaving that warm and vigorous investiture for 
a chill and forceless existence. It glides along without 
noise and very swiftly, like a shadow. It is unable to 
enter the lower kingdom and be at peace until its deserted 
body has been buried with the sacred rites ; meanwhile, 
naked and sad, it flits restlessly about the gates, uttering 
doleful moans." 

Unsatisfactory though such a picture unquestionably is, 
if we apply it to all humanity, it certainly is not without an 

123 



1 24 Universal Spiritualism 

element of truth if we restrict its application to those who, 
while on earth, have failed to pay any adequate attention 
to the supersensuous demands of life. 

The Greeks and Romans, as peoples, were during a con- 
siderable portion of their externally prosperous history de- 
voted far more to sensuous than to spiritual ideals ; conse- 
quently the highly gifted seers and seeresses among them, 
of whom there were many, soon came to perceive that the 
state of the soul, immediately following physical dissolu- 
tion, was not extremely enjoyable in a majority of instances, 
though hopeless misery was no part of the Greek or Roman 
creed. The importance of burial rites was purposely ex- 
aggerated by an ambitious priesthood and various orders of 
tradespeople, who to this very day, almost all over the 
earth, profit greatly, not only financially but in the sense of 
upholding the dignity of their respective offices by the 
superstitious regard almost universally entertained for fu- 
neral services and their elaborate collaterals. There is, 
without doubt, even some spiritual foundation for funeral 
and memorial rites, and we would be far from discourag- 
ing them totally ; at the same time it is clear to see that all 
unnecessary expenditure upon orgies for the departed is a 
waste of means and effort, and it also tends to encourage 
necromantic beliefs and practices in place of aiding us to 
outgrow our slavish dependence upon external forms to help 
us in seasons of extremity. 

Such mighty minds as Socrates, Plato, and a few other 
superb philosophers, entertained almost nothing of the pop- 
ular belief, and one of the chief causes which led to the 
condemnation to death of the highly honorable Socrates by 
Athenian judges was the fearless outspokenness with which 
he inveighed against the slavish devotion to externals which 



Greek and Roman Views of a Future Life 125 

prevailed in his day, even as it prevails in ours to an ex- 
tent which is almost incredible. 

The Greek Mysteries were (and are) sublime beyond 
compare, but their magnificent symbolism was often 
shrouded in pitiable superstition before the gaze of the mul- 
titude. The splendid dramas in which were enacted the 
story of the descent of spirit into matter, its gradual ascent 
through matter to a higher self-conscious immortal life than it 
had previously enjoyed, and its final participation in the 
bliss and glory of life celestial, were regarded by many only 
as religious spectacles, like the famous Passion Play in 
Bavaria, which has drawn enormous crowds to the cele- 
brated village of Ober Ammergau whenever it has been 
presented. 

The people at large, in all centuries and through all ages, 
have seen the shell but have not even imagined the kernel 
within, and when true philosophers (lovers of wisdom) 
have determined to penetrate to the core of symbolism and 
unveil a mystery they have been greeted with execration 
and doomed to execution by a fanatical mob prompted by 
a corrupted priesthood. A few faithful disciples have, 
however, always gathered about them, and these have pre- 
served, even though but imperfectly, for future generations 
the mighty saving truths which the world's greatest thinkers 
have, at the peril of their earthly all, uncompromisingly 
enunciated. Some of the early Greek authors described 
the universe in highly fantastic language and gave to the 
world descriptions of the unseen spheres of spirit which are 
to-day generally regarded as merely fanciful speculations. 
Imaginary though the bulk of these undoubtedly are, there 
is much in them which repays attention as they are a 
strange combination of the results of genuine seership and 



126 Universal Spiritualism 

the workings of undisciplined imagination. Though 
many of the joyless scenes depicted by early Greek rhap- 
sodists as belonging to the world of departed souls would 
be sad indeed to contemplate were they presented as en- 
during conditions, we must not forget that the doctrine of 
reincarnation prevailed in ancient Greece among those who 
could see little brightness ahead of any one in the " land of 
shades," thus, while they did not expect much joy or sun- 
shine in the unseen realms, they looked forward to a glad 
return to earth provided the life previously lived merited so 
felicitous a consequence as another earthly existence supe- 
rior to the former. 

Modern Theosophy teaches many doctrines which are as 
near of kin to early Greek as to Hindu concepts, even 
when leaders in the Theosophical Society draw their teach- 
ings avowedly from Hindu sources and freely decorate their 
speech with Sanskrit words and phrases. This is not diffi- 
cult to explain when we have once grasped the idea of a 
universal doctrine and symbolism which runs through all 
ancient and modern creeds and rituals. We must not for- 
get that when dealing with views of the future life enter- 
tained by Greeks of old, we are more often presented with 
poetical rhapsodies than with anything claiming to be a re- 
cital of unembellished fact, and this is precisely the case 
with Christian legends also. We turn to Virgil and to 
Homer to study classic views and to Dante and Milton to 
grasp the ideas of Christians of a later age. In both in- 
stances we must make allowance for " poetic license " and 
not take too literally much that may have originally been 
intended as an allegory. Allegorical teaching is not prop- 
erly fictitious, it is illustrative, representative, dramatic in 
form, and intended to present vivid tableaux by means of 



Greek and Roman Views of a Future Life 127 

which the picture-loving multitude may be led to embrace 
certain moral truths which they might not so readily heed 
were they presented without theatrical accompaniments. 

That the Greeks expected to recognize their friends in 
the spirit-spheres is evident from the words of Sophocles 
who reports the last words of Antigone: " Departing I 
strongly cherish the hope that I shall be fondly welcomed 
by my father, my mother, and my brother." Plato, in 
common with others among the greatest of Greek philoso- 
phers, endorses the Socratic doctrine, which is noble, 
rational and true, that one who has lived an upright life 
on earth has no need to fear death or aught that lies beyond 
it. This ancient philosophic doctrine has found its way 
into modern religious poetry, as witness a beautiful and 
highly optimistic hymn found in Unitarian and other 
rational, though spiritually minded, hymnals : 

" Fear ends with death, beyond it 
I nothing see but God." 

Extravagant though such a sentiment may be if we seek 
to apply it universally, — and a sternly just spiritual philos- 
ophy may insist upon modifying it, — it is immeasurably 
superior to the awful reasonless outcries of the bigots and 
fanatics who " preach into hell " all who have not accepted 
their creed, or who may have wandered from the path 
which they in their impudence and arrogance have de- 
clared to be the only road to heaven. 

Hades, or the underworld of the Greeks, was not a state 
or place of banishment because of sin or in consequence of 
any broken law in the plan of the universe ; it was merely 
a state into which all must pass after they had completed 
their term of physical existence upon the surface of the 



128 Universal Spiritualism 

earth, if their souls were too feeble to climb to Olympus 
and dwell among divinities. But we must not be unmind- 
ful of the important part played by the irrepressible idea of 
retribution for all righteousness and for all iniquity which 
is formed in the very essence of human nature, and which 
blossomed forth in Greece in a contrasting Elysium and 
Tartarus, the former being the blissful abode of the right- 
eous, the latter a penal settlement for the ungodly. 

The distribution of poetic justice as set forth in the Plays 
sometimes borders on the ludicrous and reminds us of bur- 
lesque, precisely as we can scarcely avoid laughter when 
remembering some of the fantastic mediaeval means em- 
ployed to teach moral lessons and lead the illiterate to for- 
sake their vices and pursue a path of virtue. As accom- 
modations to an undeveloped mental condition on the part 
of the " vulgar " these representations may be pardonable, 
but we must seek far beyond them to discover the higher 
ideas of the learned aesthetic Greeks, whose extreme culture 
is to this day universally acknowledged. There can be 
little doubt that the gods and goddesses of Greece and 
Rome were glorified heroes and heroines who had been, to 
use a Christian phrase, "canonized as saints" and after- 
wards promoted to the rank of deities, though there is also 
a decidedly astronomical element in all mythology. 

Ignatius Donelly, in his interesting book "Atlantis," 
declares that the Greek divinities were founded upon the 
rulers of Poseidon, that latest fragment of a once enormous 
island-continent over which the Atlantic waters for many 
millenniums have rolled. Be this as it may, mythology dis- 
tinctly reveals to us a popular belief in communion with indi- 
vidual beings who had once lived on earth, and who still re- 
tained the distinctive features of their respective individu- 



Greek and Roman Views of a Future Life i 29 

alities, but as astronomical elements are found in every 
theological and theosophical system, we find the names of 
the different planets given to divinities and attributes 
ascribed to them not unlike those which modern astrologers 
assign to Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mars and Mercury when 
they engage in casting and reading horoscopes. Turning 
to Ovid, we find him summing up the cream of Greek and 
Roman thought concerning the hereafter in the following 
illuminating words, which clearly show that differing 
planes of existence were acknowledged and that the fate 
of the lower was not ever confounded with the destiny of 
the higher. 

" Terra tegit carnem ; tumulum circumvolat umbra ; 
Oreus habet manes ; spiritus astra petit." 

A free translation of which may read, 

Earth hides the flesh ; the shade flits round the tomb ; 

The image is received by the underworld ; the spirit seeks the stars. 

Euripides declares that each element in man seeks af- 
finity with its own; thus comes the saying, " the body to 
the ground ; the spirit to the ether." Sublime indeed are 
many classic accounts of the promotion of ennobled souls 
to rank among the gods in the Elysium. As human souls 
still retain distinctive individuality, they were portrayed 
as exercising sway over the destinies of earth, and this 
rational faith undoubtedly was shared by all among the 
truly enlightened philosophers, seers and sages of antiquity. 
Plotinus has told us that " Whoever has wisdom and true 
virtue in soul differs but little from superior beings, in 
this alone being inferior to them — that he is in body." 
Such an one dying may therefore say with Empedocles, 



130 Universal Spiritualism 

"Farewell! A god immortal now am I." Vespasian in 
his expiring moments said, "I shall soon be a god." 
These and many more expressions of similar character 
easily culled from the riches of the classic treasure house, 
must prove beyond dispute that the pure, upright and 
valorous of earth had no doubt as to their reception among 
divinities when they had finished their earthly course and 
passed on to their inevitable reward. 

Among devoted friends between whom the bond of 
friendship has been extremely strong, though one has been 
manifestly intellectually and morally the superior of the 
other, fears have been expressed lest the apotheosis of the 
heroic one should completely banish him from the society 
of his less-developed comrade who could not be trans- 
ported to the "Blessed Isles." In many such instances a 
hero is said to have voluntarily foregone his beatification 
that he might still remain united with the companion to 
whom he was devotedly attached. In esoteric confra- 
ternities where the Mysteries of Eleusis are fully under- 
stood, the praise of this voluntary self-immolation for the 
sake of another is highly extolled and the declaration is 
made that whosoever makes this voluntary sacrifice is not 
only not deprived of his own merited exaltation, but is en- 
abled to so minister from the Elysium to his friend for 
whom he wished to sacrifice his own promotion that his 
friend is soon redeemed from the land of shades and en- 
titled to join him in the bliss of Paradise. 

Though the barbaric notion is not absent from classic 
literature that Elysian rewards are bestowed arbitrarily by 
gods upon their favorites, this crude and decidedly unjust 
opinion must not be taken as other than a corruption of 
the classic faith, and it was always discountenanced, and 



Greek and Roman Views of a Future Life 131 

often vehemently inveighed against, by moral teachers who 
unanimously insisted that all happiness and glory in the 
hereafter resulted solely from virtuous life. Seneca satir- 
ized in the most biting language what he considered a de- 
moralizing doctrine and travestied the supposed deification 
in the future life of those who were not worthy of such 
distinction, even going so far as to sarcastically describe 
the reception of Claudius among celestial "pumpkins." 
Pindar, the glorious Theban lyrist, takes cheerful views of 
the state of the departed in general, though he never fails 
to draw a sharp and equitable line of demarcation between 
the righteous and the insincere after their exit from mortal 
bodies. In the various dialogues of Plato many different 
doctrines are reviewed, but we may reasonably believe that 
the teachings of his illustrious preceptor, Socrates, were 
those which he really accepted and transmitted to the 
world. 

It cannot be disputed that Plato has expressed a firm 
religious and philosophical faith in the immortality of the 
soul, his thoughts, indeed, were constantly directed to this 
transcendent theme, and such pure meditations had a great 
effect upon his wise and useful life. Plato's faith rested 
not alone or chiefly upon traditional doctrines but upon 
metaphysical reasonings, in which he took elaborate de- 
light. The sincerity of his reasoning is self-evident as he 
always seeks to draw practical inferences which tend to 
ennoble conduct and lead his pupils to live more sanely 
and seriously than though they had been bereft of their 
counselor's sage precepts. Plato's philosophy is at times 
obscure but it is always moral and his teachings concern- 
ing reembodiment are fully up to the standard of many 
modern Theosophical deliverances. The soul is always 



132 Universal Spiritualism 

essentially pure, only its vesture can be soiled or muddy. 
The physical body is sometimes alluded to as a prison- 
house and the whole material world to a place of humilia- 
tion, which is in direct contrast with the materialistic 
theory, very prevalent in Plato's day, that this external 
world is the place of joy and blessedness and the state be- 
yond death a dreary unlighted wilderness in which the 
waning shades of the departed gradually lose all conscious- 
ness and eventually pass into extinction. 

The immense variety of views entertained by ancient 
Greeks and Romans were no more numerous and conflict- 
ing than those put forward at the present time, for this 
enlightened twentieth century, with all its boasted culture 
and refinement, has not outgrown materialism on the one 
hand or ecclesiastical fanaticism on the other, though both 
are surely and rapidly declining. Present day spiritual 
revelations do not serve entirely to dispel confusion, in- 
deed they sometimes seem to add to it, though to the really 
thoughtful examiner of the many diverse communications 
alleged to proceed from " departed spirits " the conflict of 
statement is only superficially apparent. 

We cannot presume that all who pass from earth to 
spirit-life are equally enlightened or that all share identical 
experiences, nor can we suppose that messages from spirit- 
spheres are always accurately transmitted or correctly in- 
terpreted. Now, as in days of old, there must be an 
immense amount of difference in the condition of souls who 
have "crossed the border " even as there is practically in- 
calculable difference between one state of humanity and 
another here on earth. Again and yet again are we com- 
pelled to reiterate the just and solemn truth that dropping 
a physical body does not transform a character, and no 



Greek and Roman Views of a Future Life 133 

belief in vicarious atonement can produce results in the 
hereafter which it certainly does not produce on earth. 

Stern yet loving is the decree of Deity made manifest in 
all worlds equally. As the individual sows so must the 
individual reap. It is a matter of small moment whether 
we agree or not as to the means whereby the law of equity 
is universally fulfilled, but to acknowledge that law and 
trust undoubtingly in its universal fulfilment is to equip 
ourselves with a moral philosophy which will stand the test 
of every assault that can ever be made upon it. 

How far Plato in the " Phsedo " has given us an all- 
satisfying philosophy of life we leave our readers to decide 
among themselves by supplementing these meditations of 
our own with a portion of one of the finest dialogues which 
the famous Grecian sage has transmitted to posterity. 

Socrates is preparing to quaff the hemlock and in view 
of an almost immediately impending change of state, from 
earth to spirit life, discourses thus among his friends who 
have remained faithful to their teacher to the last, despite 
every calumny and every blast of persecution. 

" Answer me, then," he said, " what that is which, when 
it is in the body, the body will be alive? " 

" Soul," he replied. 

" Is not this, then, always the case? " 

" How should it not be ? " said he. 

" Does the soul, then, always bring life to whatever it 
occupies ? ' ' 

"It does indeed," he replied. 

" Whether, then, is there anything contrary to life or 
not?" 

"There is," he replied. 

"What?" 



134 Universal Spiritualism 

" Death. " 

" The soul, then, will never admit the contrary of that 
which it brings with it, as has been already allowed ? " 

" Most assuredly," replied Cebes. 

' ' What, then ? How do we denominate that which 
does not admit the ide^a of the even ? ' ' 

" Uneven," he replied. 

"And that which does not admit the just, nor the 
musical ? ' ' 

"Unmusical," he said, "and unjust." 

"Be it so. But what do we call that which does not 
admit death ? ' ' 

"Immortal," he replied. 

" Therefore, does not the soul admit death?" 

"No." 

"Is the soul, then, immortal?" 

" Immortal." 

"Be it so," he said. "Shall we say, then, that this 
has been now demonstrated ? or how think you ? " 

"Most completely, Socrates." 

"What, then," said he, "Cebes, if it were necessary 
for the uneven to be imperishable, would the number three 
be otherwise than imperishable ? " 

" How should it not?" 

" If, therefore, it were also necessary that what is without 
heat should be imperishable, when any one should introduce 
heat to snow, would not the snow withdraw itself, safe and 
unmelted ? For it would not perish ; nor yet would it 
stay and admit the heat." 

" You say truly," he replied. 

" In like manner, I think, if that which is insusceptible 
of cold were imperishable, that when anything cold ap- 



Greek and Roman Views of a Future Life 135 

proached the fire, it would neither be extinguished nor 
perish, but would depart quite safe." 

" Of necessity," he said. 

"Must we not, then, of necessity," he continued, 
" speak thus of that which is immortal? if that which is 
immortal is imperishable, it is impossible for the soul to 
perish, when death approaches it. For, from what has 
been said already, it will not admit death, nor will ever be 
dead ; just as we said that three will never be even, nor, 
again, will the odd; nor will fire be cold, nor yet the 
heat that is in fire. But some one may say, what hin- 
ders, though the odd can never become even by the ap- 
proach of the even, as we have allowed, yet, when the odd 
is destroyed, that the even should succeed in its place? 
We could not contend with him who should make this 
objection that it is not destroyed, for the uneven is not im- 
perishable ; since, if this were granted us, we might easily 
have contended that, on the approach of the even, the odd 
and the three depart ; and we might have contended in 
the same way with respect to fire, heat, and the rest, 
might we not? " 

"Certainly." 

"Wherefore, with respect to the immortal, if we have 
allowed that it is imperishable, the soul, in addition to its 
being immortal, must also be imperishable ; if not, there 
will be need of other arguments." 

" But there is no need," he said, " so far as that is con- 
cerned ; for scarcely could anything not admit of corrup- 
tion, if that which is immortal and eternal is liable to it." 

"The deity, indeed, 1 think," said Socrates, "and the 
idea itself of life, and if anything else is immortal, must be 
allowed by all beings to be incapable of dissolution." 



136 Universal Spiritualism 

"By Jupiter ! " he replied, " by all men, indeed, and 
still more, as I think, by the gods." 

"Since, then, that which is immortal is also incorrup- 
tible, can the soul, since it is immortal, be anything else 
than imperishable ? " 

"It must, of necessity, be so." 

" When, therefore, death approaches a man, the mortal 
part of him, as it appears, dies, but the immortal part de- 
* parts safe and uncorrupted, having withdrawn itself from 
death?" 

"It appears so." 

"The soul, therefore," he said, "Cebes, is most cer- 
tainly immortal and imperishable, and our souls will really 
exist in Hades." 

"Therefore, Socrates," he said, "I have nothing fur- 
ther to say against this, nor any reason for doubting your 
arguments. But if Simmias here, or any one else, has any- 
thing to say, it were well for him not to be silent ; for I 
know not to what other opportunity beyond the present any 
one can defer it, who wishes either to speak or hear about 
these things." 

"But, indeed," said Simmias, "neither have I any 
reason to doubt what has been urged ; yet, from the magni- 
tude of the subject discussed, and from my low opinion of 
human weakness, I am compelled still to retain a doubt 
within myself with respect to what has been said. " 

"Not only so, Simmias," said Socrates, "but you say 
this well ; and, moreover, the first hypotheses, even though 
they are credible to you, should nevertheless be examined 
more carefully ; and if you should investigate them suffi- 
ciently, I think you will follow my reasoning as far as it 



Greek and Roman Views of a Future Life 137 

is possible for man to do so ; and if this very point becomes 
clear, you will inquire no further." 

" You speak truly," he said. 

"But it is right, my friends," he said, "that we should 
consider this — that if the soul is immortal, it requires our 
care not only for the present time, which we call life, but 
for all time ; and the danger would now appear to be dread- 
ful if one should neglect it. For if death were a deliver- 
ance from everything, it would be a great gain for the 
wicked, when they die, to be delivered at the same time 
from the body, and from their vices together with the soul ; 
but now, since it appears to be immortal, it can have no 
other refuge from evils, nor safety, except by becoming as 
good and wise as possible. For the soul goes to Hades 
possessing nothing else than its discipline and education, 
which are said to be of the greatest advantage or detriment 
to the dead, on the very beginning of his journey thither. 
For, thus, it is said that each person's demon who was as- 
signed to him while living, when he dies conducts him to 
some place, where they that are assembled together must 
receive sentence, and then proceed to Hades with that 
guide who has been ordered to conduct them from hence 
thither. But there having received their deserts, and hav- 
ing remained the appointed time, another guide brings them 
back hither again, after many and long revolutions of time. 
The journey, then, is not such as the Telephus of ^Eschylus 
describes it ; for he says that a simple path leads to Hades j 
but it appears to me to be neither simple nor one, for there 
would be no need of guides, nor could any one ever miss the 
way, if there were but one. But now it appears to have many 
divisions and windings ; and this I conjecture from our re- 



138 Universal Spiritualism 

ligious and funeral rites. 1 The well-ordered and wise soul, 
then, both follows, and is not ignorant of its present condi- 
tion ; but that which through passion clings to the body, 
as I said before, having longingly fluttered about it for a 
long time, and about its visible place, 2 after vehement re- 
sistance and great suffering, is forcibly and with great diffi- 
culty led away by its appointed demon. And when it ar- 
rives at the place where the others are, impure and having 
done any such thing as the committal of unrighteous 
murders or other similar actions, which are kindred to 
these, and are the deeds of kindred souls, every one shuns 
it and turns away from it, and will be neither its fellow - 
traveler nor guide ; but it wanders about, oppressed with 
every kind of helplessness, until certain periods have 
elapsed ; and when these are completed, it is carried, of 
necessity, to an abode suitable to it. But the soul which 
has passed through life with purity and moderation, having 
obtained the gods for its fellow -travelers and guides, settles 
each in the place suited to it." 

The foregoing extracts are taken verbatim from a literal 
translation of Plato's " Phaedo " made by Henry Cary, 
M. A., Worcester College, Oxford, England, and contained 
in a very convenient edition of ancient masterpieces en- 
titled " Pocket Literal Translations of the Classics " issued 
by David McKay, Publisher, Philadelphia. 

1 It is difficult to express the distinction between offta and vdfitfxa. 
The former word seems to have reference to the souls of the dead ; 
the latter, to their bodies. 

2 Its place of interment. 



CHAPTER IX 

HINDU CONCEPTIONS OF THE SOUL AND 
ITS IMMORTALITY 

Though during recent years Europe and America have 
been flooded with Oriental teachers, and translations of San- 
skrit literature have been industriously and widely dissem- 
inated, the enormous variety of views entertained in eastern 
Asia concerning all spiritual problems is so bewildering that 
India and Ceylon, chief centres respectively of Brahman- 
ism and Buddhism, are still storehouses of an immense 
amount of knowledge as yet unappropriated and uncompre- 
hended in the West. Max Miiller styled the " Rig Veda " 
the oldest book in the world, and it may be clearly seen by 
all who are attempting to fathom Oriental philosophy, that 
Vedic teachings lie at the root of almost every modern 
philosophic system. India has always foeen a land of en- 
trancing mystery which only the very keenest among Anglo- 
Indians have ever sought to penetrate. 

British rule in India has been something of a blessing, 
and it may have saved the country from a far worse fate ; 
but the average Briton, until quite recently, even when 
fairly, and sometimes highly educated, has taken so con- 
temptuous a view of the religion of all " heathen " peoples 
that he has regarded India only as a field for missionary 
effort, not as a school in which all peoples may profitably 
study the foundations of religion and philosophy. 

The Sacred Books of the East are now fairly accessible 
to the reading public the world over, and ever since Max 

l 39 



140 Universal Spiritualism 

Muller lectured in Westminster Abbey, by invitation of 
Dean Stanley in 1870, the stupid prejudice which formerly 
existed against Oriental doctrines and religious practices 
has, in some measure, subsided even among the most con- 
servative Christians. Much more recently the work of the 
Theosophical Society, and in a very marked degree the 
* lectures and writings of Annie Besant, who always com- 
mands a large and attentive hearing, has served to dispel 
much of the gloom and misrepresentation which formerly 
hung like a funeral pall over the spiritual and intellectual 
treasures of the mighty East. 

Brahmanism and Buddhism are the two great aspects 
and embodiments of Oriental religion and philosophy 
which naturally receive the largest share of popular atten- 
tion. These are not at root antagonistic ; for, as Sir Ed- 
win Arnold clearly proved in his magnificent poem " The 
Light of Asia," Gautama the Buddha was not an iconoclast 
who sought to destroy the Brahmanic faith, but a reformer 
whose sole aim was to purify it. The caste system, which 
seems an integral part of Brahmanism, is not the wholly 
objectionable thing which many of its traducers still im- 
agine it to be. It is indeed essentially quite reasonable, 
though liable to gross corruptions; and against perver- 
sions of it, and against such only, did the hero of "the 
Great Renunciation " forcibly protest. The Absolute 
Being Para-Brahm, being beyond all related definition, — 
and all peoples demand some concrete views of Deity, — 
we find three expressions of Infinite Life, called Brahma, 
Vishnu and Siva, prominent in Indian theology ; as we 
find Osiris, Isis and Horus in Egypt, and Father, Son and 
Holy Spirit in Christendom. " Three Persons and one 
God " seems to be the first endeavor on the part of 



Hindu Conceptions of the Soul 141 

religious leaders to put into something like intelligible 
phrase the idea of one Supreme Being manifesting in a 
threefold manner — as Creator, Preserver and Transformer. 

The ancient symbols of the Circle and the Triangle are 
common alike to India and Egypt ; indeed we find them 
everywhere, the former intended to denote the Infinite- 
Eternal and the absolute immortality of life itself; the lat- 
ter intended to deal with manifested Being in measure 
comprehensible by human faculties. 

Sir Monier Williams, whose work on Hinduism has 
been published by the British Society for Promoting 
Christian Knowledge, has very frankly stated that the 
primal doctrine of Brahmanism is one Infinite Eternal 
Spirit. All that seemingly exists separate from that Spirit 
is illusion. This statement should not be taken to mean 
that there can be no individual existences distinct one 
from the other; but, though they are distinct, they are 
essentially inseparable one from the other and are all de- 
rived from the Infinite One. We may well remember the 
words of Mabel Collins in " Light on the Path" where 
she informs her readers that " Kill out the sense of sep- 
arateness " is a direction given to all who are seeking to 
enter within the charmed circle of Eastern (esoteric) 
wisdom. 

Annie Besant, in " A Study in Consciousness," throws 
much light on the true significance of such a precept, and 
employs many telling illustrations to elucidate the Oriental 
idea of unity expressed in multiplicity. Readers of 
Swedenborg will be quite familiar with this distinction be- 
tween " separateness " and "distinctness" upon which 
the illumined seer and sage of Sweden voluminously dwells. 
"God is the First (original) of every man" is one of 



142 Universal Spiritualism 

Swedenborg's highly important declarations ; aiid we must 
not forget that he tells us that many thousands of years be- 
fore his time there were those on earth who knew and 
treasured the holy truths which he was commissioned to 
redeliver to mankind in the eighteenth century in Europe. 
In Great Tartary he says a portion of the " Ancient 
'Word" remains concealed, and he informs us that as the 
world grows more and more enlightened, as a new dispen- 
sation of truth advances on its way, long hidden mysteries 
will be revealed for the edification of humanity at large. 

Brahmans and Buddhists alike conceive of the universe 
on a gigantic scale, and not only are their ideas of size, 
but also their ideas of time, magnificent. Mount Meru 
rises to a height of two million miles from the centre of 
the earth. On its summit is the abode of Brahma, occu- 
pying a space of fourteen thousand leagues, surrounded by 
the splendid dwellings of celestial regents. Between Meru 
and the extreme circumference of the earth are seven con- 
centric circles of rock ; between these are continents and 
seas. We might easily go on to paint a wondrous picture 
of glories and horrors, all contained within this vast ex- 
panse, were it our purpose to give to our readers a detailed 
account of how Oriental imagination has pictured forth 
its concepts of this universe (one out of a countless multi- 
tude of universes) in which we are now abiding, — and 
through it all a moral purpose runs. But we have no space 
for such enormous wealth of detail, nor do we undertake 
to decipher so many graphic hieroglyphics or attempt to 
point the special lesson which each sublime romantic 
tale is designed to teach. Suffice it to say that the cos- 
mology and cosmogony of India are so intricate and won- 
derful, and withal so well in keeping with the latest 



Hindu Conceptions of the Soul 143 

findings of Western astronomers, that when stripped of 
picturesque imagery and translated into the sober prose of 
English speech, we might well accept the claim to supernal 
wisdom made for the original authors of the Vedas by 
those who firmly believe that India's sacred literature and 
immensely ancient traditions embody a system of science 
and philosophy unequaled elsewhere on earth. 

Brahmans and Buddhists alike, sharing faith in an 
illimitable cosmos, declare that gods, men, demons and 
every form of animal life occupying a countless host of 
worlds, all constitute one family. The totality of animated 
existences, from glorious Indra to the most insignificant in- 
sect, constitute one vast fraternal race. We read in the 
Vishnu Parana: "The Universe, this whole egg of 
Brahma, is everywhere teeming with living creatures, all 
captives in the chain of acts." " Elder Brethren of the 
Race " is the appropriate title often given to Masters and 
even to Devas (the shining ones) by modern students of 
Asiatic philosophy, which, when delivered from the 
shackles of repugnant superstitions with which it is even 
yet deeply shrouded, will be found to contain a doctrine of 
Cosmic Consciousness satisfactory to head and heart alike. 

The vexed question of the transmigration of souls from 
body to body until Nirvana is attained, must be considered 
under two widely differing aspects. With popular credulity 
we are all measurably familiar, and we can well credit the 
tale told by H. P. Blavatsky, in her book of travels entitled 
"In the Caves and Jungles of Hindustan," where she 
describes an ignorant family mourning over the incarna- 
tion of the soul of a member of that family in the body of 
a vampire bat. Wild, foolish, and repugnant though such 
superstitions are, — and no one works to abolish them 



144 



Universal Spiritualism 



more earnestly than intelligent Theosophists who make a 
special study of Oriental philosophy, — even such a fate for 
a human soul is mild and merciful indeed when contrasted 
with belief in endless misery ; for a bat will die in a few 
years, if it be not killed prematurely, and then the tem- 
porarily imprisoned human soul is liberated and allowed 
another opportunity to pursue an onward way. Such be- 
liefs are, however, exclusively the property of the ignorant 
and form not any portion of the faith of the learned in 
Hindustan. This H. P. Blavatsky most positively declares, 
and Colonel Olcott, president of the Theosophical Society, 
whose headquarters are at Adyar, has many times con- 
firmed this declaration. James Freeman Clarke, in his 
splendid treatise on "Ten Great Religions," suggested 
that the right interpretation of transmigration was evolu- 
tion. In a " backward cipher" the scientific knowledge 
of Eastern Asia has been often written ; so that when we 
reverse the order of the literal statement we shall not look 
forward to incarceration in the bodies of lower creatures, 
but shall look backward down the ages and trace the life- 
tide ever rising higher and higher through the mineral, 
vegetable and animal kingdoms up to man ; then on from 
stage to stage in human development till at length the pro- 
gressing spiritual entity clothes itself in garments of celestial 
glory and manifests as a bright shining Deva, as far beyond 
the highest human stage with which we are acquainted on 
earth as that stage is superior to the lowest type of savage. 
India's ancient philosophy is indeed intricate, but its 
intricacies are practically unavoidable, for it aims at noth- 
ing less than a definition of the universal Cosmos. We 
advise our readers to peruse "The Ancient Wisdom " and 
"A Study in Consciousness," two wonderful books by 



Hindu Conceptions of the Soul 145 

Annie Besant, if they are desirous of gaining further in- 
sight into the mysteries of Oriental philosophy. Mrs. 
Besant's works are quite profound, and at the same time 
sufficiently popular in style to commend her writings to 
the attention of all seriously disposed people, particularly 
to all such as wish to know how a studious Englishwoman, 
who was for many years a public exponent of Materialism, 
has found in Indian lore a satisfactory answer to all her 
doubts and cavilings. We do not wonder that many 
travelers in the East, not excepting some who are highly 
intelligent, have supposed that Brahmans and Buddhists 
alike look forward to the ultimate obliteration of all indi- 
vidualized existence ; but such a view is not taken by those 
who penetrate deeply into Oriental doctrine. A single 
Sanskrit term, Para-Nirvana, is sufficient to prove that 
Nirvana cannot mean extinction of individual life, or 
there could be no state beyond ; and Para means a higher 
state. When, in the Christian Scriptures, we read of a 
condition of blissful existence in Paradise which "eye 
has not seen, ear has not heard, and the heart of man has 
not conceived," we are confronted with a truly Oriental 
concept, and a thoroughly reasonable one ; for nothing 
can be more absurd than to suppose that those spheres of 
existence which immediately encircle, and also inter- 
penetrate, this earth, and are the present dwelling places 
of the vast multitude of excarnated human entities who 
constitute the unseen population of this globe, are the 
ultimate abiding places of humanity, or that they repre- 
sent or can make manifest anything higher or larger than 
the ?iext state, the immediately succeeding link in the 
mighty chain of progressive individual existence which fol- 
lows directly upon physical disbodiment. 



146 Uniyersal Spiritualism 

Though the idea of reincarnation pervades all Hindu 
literature, there is no mistaking the fact that all Hindu 
philosophers have spoken of a glorious condition when the 
soul shall be no longer chained to the " wheel of change." 
Births and deaths and rebirths are necessary until all lessons 
•have been learned which incarnations can teach, until the 
soul has become so fully purified from carnal desires and 
selfish purposes that it is no longer attracted earthward. 

But, even when it has fulfilled its allotted tasks, assigned 
to it by these benevolent " Fires of the Kosmos " and 
" Lords of Karma " who superintend all the winding paths 
of man's terrestrial existences, the soul may then, if it so 
wills, incarnate voluntarily on a mission of good will to 
humanity, making a voluntary renunciation of the bliss to 
which it is entitled, and plunging again into the vortex of 
the earthly maelstrom that it may teach, heal and bless 
those who are yet struggling on lower rungs of the ladder 
of attainment. Such is the motive which brings to earth 
a Messiah or Avatar. Christ, ' ' emptying himself of his 
glory" and descending to earth to save humanity, is a 
very familiar thought among all who are diligent students 
of Asia's profound philosophies. Christians, particularly 
if they are intelligent Universalists, may do much good in 
India and help to lift the native populations out of the 
dreary apathy into which millions have sunk, and out of 
the superstitions which a degraded form of religion has 
tolerated if not actually fostered ; but missionaries from 
the West must never forget that they are ministering among 
a people whose traditions are filled with the noblest ethical 
precepts, which need only to be revived and restated, not 
to be supplanted by the jargon of an alien creed. 

When perusing much of the accessible literature which 



Hindu Conceptions of the Soul 147 

attempts to explain Hindu philosophy and makes quota- 
tions from the Vedas, Puranas, and other venerable tomes, 
we are reminded of beautiful pictures executed by truly 
great masters (such as we often find in Italy), blackened 
by candle-smoke, festooned with cobwebs, overlaid with dust 
and grime, but only needing restoration by a cleansing 
process which shall remove accumulated debris to show 
themselves anew in pristine glory, as they first appeared 
when the great artists who produced them had finished 
their exquisite work. Slowly, but surely, the West is begin- 
ning to understand the East, and with the certain downfall 
of sacerdotal assumptions and ecclesiastical fallacies in 
Christendom, revised philosophies which do indeed in- 
terpret the universe both spiritually and rationally will 
come prominently into view and take the places now being 
left vacant by the decline of dogmas which the intelligence 
of Europe and America has certainly outgrown. We need 
not attempt to vouch for figures, all of which may have a 
symbolic and esoteric meaning, but even when we are told 
that four billion, three hundred and twenty millions of 
years constitute a day of Brahma, during which a mani- 
fested universe exists, and that this is followed by a Night 
of Brahma, during which it sleeps, we can only exclaim 
that such stupendous periods agree far more with the find- 
ings of modern astronomers than did the ridiculously small 
numbers, extending only to a few thousand years, which 
our forefathers believed marked correctly the duration of 
a solar system, because they took every word in Genesis 
literally and had no knowledge whatever of the figurative 
style in which all Oriental books are written. 

Hindu philosophy is centred in the idea of Karma, 
which is relentless equity, allowing no place for such par- 



148 Universal Spiritualism 

don, forgiveness or vicarious atonement as the orthodox 
Christian world delights to picture ; but stern and unre- 
lenting though the Karmic law appears, it is truly described 
by Sir Edwin Arnold in those memorable words — " the 
* heart of it is love, ' ' which should never be forgotten by 
any who seek to penetrate its august mysteries. The 
most orthodox of Christians love the beautiful text from 
the first of John's Epistles — " God is love" but such words 
are a mockery in the ears of heart-stricken mourners, who 
have been newly bereft of some beloved friend who has 
passed into the unseen stat;e "unconverted " or " unregen- 
erate," for a wicked belief in endless misery does not 
tolerate even a hope that such poor souls shall ever be re- 
leased from misery. " God has decreed otherwise" is the 
blasphemous utterance of many a deluded and deluding 
preacher, who controverts what Tennyson expressed as 
" the larger hope." Though so frightful a doctrine is not 
nearly so common as it used to be, it is still preached, par- 
ticularly at revival and mission services, but never with 
any permanently good effect. If all Christians were Uni- 
versalists we could listen in complacent silence to their 
attacks on some aspects of Oriental philosophy, and even 
then we would mildly suggest that there is something yet 
to be learned from Asia, but the most savage attacks upon 
the allied doctrines of Karma and Reincarnation have come 
from types of missionaries into whose darkened minds the 
light of Universalism has never shone. It may not be 
pleasant, while the suffering lasts, to pay the penalty due 
to one's misdeeds, but the result is well worth all that it 
has cost to reach it ; this the Christian New Testament, 
equally with Hindu Scriptures, unequivocally declares. 
Many Spiritualists antagonize the thought of reembodi- 



Hindu Conceptions of the Soul 149 

ment, while others fervently proclaim it, but all teach 
retribution and progressive elevation. We may dispute 
over ways and means, but we can all agree on one point, 
viz., that as we sow we reap. The law of sequence 
(Karma) does not permit of inequity in the universe. All 
is adjusted perfectly throughout the immensely complicated 
scheme of worlds of which this earth is one. This is a 
teaching common to Spiritualism and to Theosophy, and 
its roots are deeply grounded in ancient Oriental doctrines. 
Our attention having frequently been called to the 
necessity of having clear English equivalents for Sanskrit 
terms which are now often freely mentioned among students 
of spiritual philosophy, and wishing to present our readers 
with as clear and concise an outline as possible of Hindu 
teaching, we have drawn the following interpretations from 
" A Study in Consciousness " by Annie Besant (Theosoph- 
ical Publishing Society) in the hope that the few extracts 
we have taken the liberty to make from that erudite volume 
will lead many of our readers to procure and study it 
themselves. Though the sub-title of the book is " A con- 
tribution to the Science of Psychology," it is widely 
different, alike in tone and subject matter, from works on 
psychology in general, as it is based on Hinduism, and 
then branches out into all the many fields which Material- 
ists equally with Theosophical psychologists seek to study. 
Mrs. Besant says " We have learned that the matter in a 
solar system exists in seven great modifications, or planes. 
On three of these, the physical, emotional (astral) and 
mental — often spoken of as the three worlds — the well- 
known Triloki or Tribhunanum of the Hindu cosmogony is 
proceeding the normal evolution of humanity. On the 
next two planes, the spiritual — those of wisdom and power, 



150 Universal Spiritualism 

the Buddhic and the Atmic — goes on the specific evolution 
of the Initiate, after the first of the Great Initiations. 
These five planes form the field of the evolution of con- 
sciousness, until the human merges in the divine. The 
two planes beyond the five represent the sphere of divine 
activity, encircling and enveloping all, out of which pour 
forth all the divine energies which unify and sustain the 
whole system. They are at present entirely beyond our 
knowledge, and the few hints that have been given regard- 
ing them probably convey as much information as our 
limited capacity is able to grasp. We are taught that they 
are the planes of Divine Consciousness, wherein the Logos, 
or the divine trinity of Logoi, is manifested and where- 
from He shines forth as the Creator, the Preserver, the 
Dissolver ; evolving a universe, maintaining it during its 
life-period, withdrawing it into Himself at its ending. We 
have been given the names of these two planes : the lower 
is the Anupadaka, that wherein no vehicle has yet been 
formed ; the higher is the Adi ; the first, the foundation 
of a universe, its support, the fount of its life. We have 
thus the seven planes of a universe, a solar system, which, 
as we see by this brief description, may be regarded as 
making up three groups : 1. The field of Logic manifesta- 
tion only. 2. The field of super-normal human evolution, 
that of the Initiate. 3. The field of elemental, mineral, 
vegetable, animal and normal human evolution. We may 
tabulate these facts thus : 

1 . Adi I I. The field of Logic manifestation 

2. Anupadaka j only. 

3. Atmic ) II. The field of super-normal human 

4. Buddhic \ evolution. 



Hindu Conceptions of the Soul 151 

5. Mental ) III. The field of elemental, mineral, 

6. Emotional v vegetable, animal, and normal human 

7. Physical ) evolution. 

As we are indebted to Mrs. Besant for this summary of 
Hindu teaching concerning the system of worlds in which 
we are at present living, she in turn acknowledges indebt- 
edness to a Sanskrit manuscript called Pranana-vdda. 
Here we have a very ancient and truly profound exposition 
of the seven states, or spheres, which are continually being 
mentioned in connection with spiritual existence. The 
number seven is the number of the system to which this 
earth belongs, and throughout all sacred literature, and 
persistently in spiritualistic statements does this number ap- 
pear. In the first chapter of Genesis the work of Elohim 
is accomplished in six periods of activity followed by a 
seventh period of sublime repose. In the Apocalypse there 
are seven spirits of God or divine emanations from the In- 
effable One, seven seals which have to be broken before the 
contents of the mystic book can be made known, also a 
rainbow about the throne, another allusion to the number 
seven. The Beast and the False Prophet can never attain 
to a higher numeral than six ; therefore six hundred sixty- 
six, denoting imperfection of statement and failure to at- 
tain to completeness in any direction, is given as the num- 
ber of all that is doomed in time to pass away. Whoever 
will study the Christian Scriptures side by side with San- 
skrit documents will find a wonderful agreement between 
them, and it is surely not presumptuous to suggest that the 
younger have more likely drawn from the elder than that 
the more ancient have been copied from those of later date. 
Investigations of Hindu documents reveal the roots of 



152 Universal Spiritualism 

every doctrine which has been set forth as original with 
Christianity, and though perversions are found in India as 
well as in Europe, and we should be foolish indeed did we 
bow slavishly to all the theories we might pick up in India, 
the venerable sources whence Brahmanical and Buddhistic 
doctrines and institutions have sprung are truly wells of 
living water at which thirsty travelers may refresh them- 
selves to-day, even as did the ancient Aryans long before 
that decadence set in under which degraded India has suf- 
fered for so many centuries. Though it is continually 
asserted by opponents of Hindu philosophy that its incul- 
cations are mainly responsible for India's degradation, we 
answer emphatically no / though we admit that a corrupted 
priesthood has had much to do with the servility and 
despondency of a large section of India's teeming popula- 
tion. But Christendom cannot boast of freedom from the 
same blight, seeing that the beautiful teachings of the New 
Testament have been equally travestied and perverted, and 
nowhere have people been kept in greater ignorance than 
during some periods in Christian countries even when a 
dominant church has had the power in its hands to change 
conditions at its dictation. 

Prophets and priests have always been at variance. It 
was Buddha the enlightened prophet who revolutionized the 
religion of India in his day, from 500 to 600 b. c. Not 
against the Vedas did he utter protest, but only against 
perverse practices and a falsification of the ancient faith. 

The caste system of India can easily be justified and it can 
as easily be condemned, for there are two diametrically 
opposite views of caste still extant. The four great castes 
are all said to proceed from Brahma. The highest or rul- 
ing caste proceeds from Brahma's head ; the two inter- 



Hindu Conceptions of the Soul 153 

mediary castes from Brahma's body; the lowest caste 
from Brahma's feet. At first sight it seems that such a 
classification necessarily leads to the exaltation of some and 
the humiliation of others, but a deeper study of the state- 
ment serves to dispel that illusion, because we are at once 
reminded that a divine body is equally good in all its 
parts, therefore to proceed from divine feet is to be in- 
trinsically as holy as though one had issued from the divine 
head. The four great castes are intended to do distinct 
kinds of work in the world, and are qualified accordingly ; 
and as all useful work is honorable, no one can be degraded 
or should any one be despised because he does any por- 
tion of it. 

Then again, when the doctrine of reincarnation is con- 
sidered it may be fairly argued that those now in the 
highest caste have come up through a succession of lives 
from the very lowest, and those now in the lowest are des- 
tined to make their way upward even to the highest. 
Such a doctrine is consistent with the claim of universal 
brotherhood, and has no connection whatever with Calvin's 
misconceptions of election which made the teaching of 
Paul hideous through such gross perversions of its mean- 
ing. We hear much of the inferior place assigned to 
women in India, and we are told that the Hindu Scriptures 
sanction female degradation. Here again we protest that 
only degraded notions and practices have obscured the prim- 
itive faith and practice, for if we but remember that the 
same soul is said to live alternately on earth in male and 
female bodies, it is ridiculous to assume that either man or 
woman can be the higher of the two. Sir Monier Will- 
iams has told us that all the gods of India have wives, and 
that goddesses hold equal rank with gods in Hindu mythol- 



154 Universal Spiritualism 

ogy. This is so, and it is equally the case with Egyptian, 
Greek and all other mythologic systems, though, as in the 
history of Judaism and Christianity, there have been times 
when an exclusively male priesthood has monopolized all 
religious functions, and never without introducing bar- 
barity and bloodshed. There are no venerable Scrip- 
tures extant which do not give abundant evidence that men 
and women, in days of pristine purity, were regarded as of 
equal rank and dignity in the eyes of heaven and earth ; 
we therefore rejoice in every effort made in India, as in 
other lands, to reinstate woman in her rightful place as 
man's coequal, neither higher nor lower than her brother, 
if we find practices in India which are revolting to our 
sense of equity, let us protest against them, but let us not 
fall into the foolish popular error of confounding decadent 
beliefs and customs with the original sublimities of Vedanta 
philosophy. 

It is a noteworthy fact that the Theosophical Society, 
which soon after its formation in New York, in 1875, es- 
tablished its headquarters in India, depended more upon a 
woman (H. P. Blavatsky) than upon any man for the in- 
troduction of Eastern philosophy to the West, and to-day 
another remarkable woman (Annie Besant) is unveiling 
the ancient Hindu doctrines to the Occident. We are 
quite well aware that there are Hindus who resent and 
oppose the work of a woman, born in another land, who 
gathers disciples around her in ancient India and unfolds 
to them some of the mysteries of their own most venerated 
books ; but it has never occurred in the history of any 
renaissance and reform that some self-interested and ultra- 
conservative element has not arisen to put obstacles in the 
path of the reformer. We must not judge Hindu phil 



Hindu Conceptions of the Soul 155 

osophy in its original purity by the encrustations which 
have long obscured it ; and considering the attitude of 
the average Briton to the native population of India, we 
need not wonder that suspicion is aroused in some quar- 
ters whenever a member of the invading and conquering 
race appears as a friend of the ancient religion which 
Christian missionaries have sought in vain to overthrow. 
To purify from foul accretions is a noble work, and one in 
which enlightened people of all nations can unitedly en- 
gage ; but to substitute orthodox Christianity for Hinduism 
will prove an impossible attempt, as the philosophic Hindu 
mind can never be induced to accept it. In Ceylon, 
where the Theosophical Society long ago established an 
excellent school for Buddhist girls at Colombo, the same 
kindly feeling has been spreading between the British and 
the Cinghalese which was largely promoted by Sir Edwin 
Arnold, whose " Light of Asia " was accepted by the chief 
representatives of Southern Buddhism as a truthful ex- 
position of the Buddhist faith. To the Western intellect 
that well-known and greatly admired poem fails to make 
quite clear what Buddhists really believe concerning the 
destiny of the soul ; but this at least is clear that they 
have a distinct conception of an ever-ascending life, and 
though there are agnostics and pessimists among them, 
their real faith is quite in harmony with the Unitarian 
declaration concerning the progress of humanity onward 
and upward forever. Tradition declares that Gautama 
reached Nirvana while yet he lived on earth, and as Nir- 
vana only means conquest over every selfish appetite and 
personal desire apart from the life of others, we can readily 
see how easily one may believe that a true Master may 
have entered a state of serene blessedness, at one with all 



156 Universal Spiritualism 

life, and still retain individual self-consciousness in thi6 or 
in any other sphere of Spiritual activity. 

In the next chapter we present the views of one of the 
Hindu delegates to the World's Parliament of Religions, 
expressed in a lecture presented to us by its author, the 
genial Swami Vivekananda, who after returning to his 
native India soon peacefully quitted his earthly condition 
and passed into the ranks of those unseen ministers who 
keep faithful watch over the progress of incarnate human- 
ity and, oftener than any of us think, inspire our efforts to 
reach the goal that they, with us, are still pursuing. 



CHAPTER X 
VEDANTA PHILOSOPHY 

The following lecture on " The Atman," by the Swami Viveka- 
nanda, delegate to the Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 1893, was 
originally delivered under the auspices of the Brooklyn Ethical As- 
sociation, February 2, 1896, and presented to the author of this 
volume by the gifted lecturer, who has since departed to spirit life. 
In 1899 at Greenacre, a charming resort on the border line between 
New Hampshire and Maine, conducted by Miss Sarah Farmer (a 
true philanthropist) we were privileged to sit under the trees and 
listen to the following philosophy : 

(1) The Differentiated ; Personal God. 

(2) The Partially Differentiated : Immanent God. 

(3) The Undifferentiated : Impersonal God. 

Many of you have read Max Miiller's celebrated book, 
" Three lectures on the Vedanta Philosophy," and some 
of you may, perhaps, have read in German, Professor 
Deussen's book on the same philosophy. In much that is 
written and taught in the West about the religious thought 
of India one school of Indian thought is principally repre- 
sented, that which is called "Advaitism," the monistic 
side of Indian religion ; and sometimes it is thought that 
all the teachings of the Vedas are comprised in that one 
system of philosophy. There have, however, been various 
phases of Indian thought, and perhaps this non-dualistic 
form is in the minority as compared with the other phases. 
From the most ancient times there have been various sects 
of thought in India, and, as there never was a formulated 

iS7 



158 Universal Spiritualism 

or recognized church or any body of men to designate the 
doctrines which should be believed by each school, people 
were very free to choose their own form, make their own 
philosophy and establish their own sects. We, therefore, 
find that from the most ancient times India was full of re- 
ligious sects. At the present time I do not know how 
many hundreds of sects we have in India, and several 
fresh ones are coming into existence every year. It seems 
that the religious activity of that nation is simply inex- 
haustible. 

Of these various sects, in the first place, there can be 
made two main divisions, the orthodox and the unortho- 
. dox. Those that believe in the Hindu Scriptures, the 
Vedas, as eternal revelations of truth are called orthodox, 
and those that stand on other authority, rejecting the 
Vedas, are the heterodox in India. The chief modern un- 
orthodox Hindu sects are the Jains and the Buddhists. 
Excepting these, the orthodox Hindu sects comprise 
nearly the whole of the Hindu population of India at the 
present time, and all admit the authority of the Hindu 
Scriptures, the Vedas. Some of them declare that the 
Scriptures are of much higher authority than reason ; oth- 
ers, again say that only that portion of the Scriptures 
which is rational should be taken and the rest rejected. 

They, also, form various sects. These sects were di- 
vided into three groups — the Sankhyas, the Naiyayikas 
and the Mimamsakas. Of these three groups two, the 
Sankhyas and the Naiyayikas, although they existed as 
philosophical schools, failed to form any sect. The one 
sect that now really covers India is that of the later Mi- 
mamsakas, or the Vedantists. Their philosophy is called 
Vedantism. All the various philosophies are based on the 



Vedanta Philosophy 159 

Vedantas, the Hindu Scriptures, but the monists took the 
name to themselves as a specialty, because they wanted to 
base the whole of their theology and philosophy upon the 
Vedas and nothing else, and in the course of time they 
prevailed, and all the various sects of India that now exist 
can be referred to some form of these Vedantists. Yet 
these Vedantists are not unanimous in their opinions. 

We find now that there are three principal variations 
among the sects. On one point they all agree, and that is 
that they all believe in God. All these Vedantists also be- 
lieve the Vedas to be the revealed word of that God, not 
exactly in the same sense, perhaps, as the Christians or the 
Mahommedans believe, or the Buddhists, but in a very pe- 
culiar sense. Their idea is that the Vedas are an expression 
of the knowledge of God, and as God is eternal, His 
knowledge is eternally with Him, and so are the Vedas eter- 
nal. There is another common ground of belief; the be- 
lief in the creation in cycles ; that the whole of this crea- 
tion is appearing and disappearing ; it is projected and be- 
comes grosser and grosser, and that at the end of an incal- 
culable period of time the whole thing becomes finer and 
dissolves, and subsides, and then comes a period of rest. 
Again, it begins to appear. They admit one material, 
which they call "akasa," something like the present ether 
theory of the scientists, and a power which they call 
"prana." About this prana they declare that by its vi- 
bration all the universe is produced. When a cycle ends, 
all this manifestation of nature becomes finer and finer and 
dissolves back to that akasa, that ether, which cannot be 
seen or felt, yet out of which everything is manufactured. 
All the forces that we see in nature, either as gravitation, 
or attraction, or repulsion, or as thought, as feeling, as 



160 Universal Spiritualism 

nervous motion — all these various forces resolve into that 
prana, and the vibration of that prana ceases ; in that state 
it remains until the beginning of the next cycle. Prana 
then begins to vibrate, and that vibration acts upon the 
akasa, and all these forms are thrown out in regular suc- 
cession. 

The first sect about whom I want to speak to you is 
that which we style in India the "Dualists." The Dual- 
ists are those who believe that God, who is the Creator of 
the universe and its Ruler, is eternally separate from na- 
ture, eternally separate from the human soul. The souls, 
according to all the different theories, are eternal. God is 
eternal ; nature is eternal ; so are all souls. Nature and 
the souls become manifested and change, but God remains 
the same. According to the Dualists, again, this God is 
personal, in that He has qualities, not that He has 
body. No sect believes that God has body, only that 
He has human attributes ; He is merciful; He is just ; He 
is powerful ; He is almighty ; He can be approached ; 
He can be prayed to; He can be loved; He loves 
in return, and so forth. In one word, He is a Human 
God, only infinitely greater than man; He has none 
of the evil qualities which men have. " He is the 
repository of an infinite number of blessed qualities " ; 
that is their definition. This God is creating this universe 
out of nature. He cannot create without materials, and 
nature is the material out of which He creates this whole 
universe. Some of the Dualists are what they call the 
u Atomists," who believe that this nature is nothing but an 
infinite number of atoms, and God's will, acting upon 
these atoms, creates. The Vedantists deny the atomic 
theory ; they say this theory is perfectly illogical. Sup- 



Vedanta Philosophy 161 

posing there were atoms, according to the theory atoms 
must be indivisible. They are like geometrical points, 
without parts or magnitude, but something without parts 
or magnitude, if multiplied an infinite number of times, 
will remain the same. Anything that has no parts will 
never make something that has parts; any number of 
zeros added together will not make one single whole num- 
ber. So, if these atoms are such that they have no parts 
or magnitude, out of such atoms the creation of the uni- 
verse is simply impossible. Therefore, according to the 
Vedantic Dualists, there is this nature, which they call 
indiscreet or undifferentiated, and out of that God creates 
this universe. The vast mass of Indian people are Dualists. 
Human nature ordinarily cannot conceive of anything 
higher than this. We find ninety per cent, of the popula- 
tion of this earth of ours who believe in any religion are 
Dualists. All the religions of Europe and Western Asia 
are Dualistic ; they have to be ; they cannot think of any- 
thing which is not concrete. Man naturally likes to cling 
to that which his intellect can grasp. That is to say, he 
can only conceive of higher spiritual ideas by bringing 
them down to his own level. He can only grasp abstract 
thoughts by making them concrete. This is the religion 
of the mass of mankind all over the world. They believe 
in a God who is entirely separate from them, as it were, a 
great king, a high, mighty monarch. . At the same time 
they make Him purer than the monarchs of the earth ; 
they give Him all good qualities and remove the evil 
qualities from Him. As if it were ever possible for good 
to exist without evil ; as if there could be any conception 
of light without a conception of darkness ! 

With all Dualistic theories the first difficulty to present 



162 Universal Spiritualism 

itself would be, How is it possible that, under the rule of a 
just and merciful God, the repository of an infinite number 
of good qualities, there can be so many evils in this world ? 
This question has arisen in all Dualistic religions, but the 
Hindus never invented a Satan as an answer to it. All of 
these sects, with one accord, lay the blame on man him- 
self, and it was easy for them to do this. How ? Because, 
as I have just now told you, they do not believe that souls 
were created out of nothing. We see in this life that we 
shape and can form all our own future ; every one of us, 
every day, is trying to shape to-morrow. To-day we fix 
the fate of to-morrow ; to-morrow we will fix the fate of 
the day after to-morrow, and so on. It is quite logical 
that this reasoning can be pushed backward, too. If, by 
our own deeds, we shape our destiny in the future, why 
not apply the same rule to the past ? If, in an infinite 
chain, a certain number of links, repeated alternately, 
eternally recur, then, if one of these groups be explained, 
we can explain the whole chain. So, in this infinite length 
of time, if we can cut off one portion and explain that por- 
tion and understand it, then, if it be true that nature is 
uniform, the same explanation must apply to the whole 
chain of time. If it be true that we are working out our 
own destiny here within this short space of time, if it be 
true that everything must have a cause as we see it now, 
it must also be true that that which we are now is the effect 
of the whole of the past; therefore, no other person is 
necessary to shape the destiny of mankind but man him- 
self. The evils that are in this world are caused by none 
else but ourselves. We have caused all this evil ; and, 
just as we constantly see misery resulting from evil actions, 
so we can also see that much of the existing misery in the 



Vedanta Philosophy 163 

world is the effect of past wickedness in man. Man alone, 
therefore, according to this theory, is responsible j God is 
not to blame ; He the eternally merciful Father is not to 
blame at all. " We reap that we sow." 

Another peculiar doctrine is that every soul must eventu- 
ally come to salvation. No one will be left. Through 
various vicissitudes, through various sufferings and enjoy- 
ments, in the end, each one of them will come out. Come 
out of what ? The one common idea of all Hindu sects is 
that all souls have to get out of this universe. Neither that 
universe which we now see and feel or even that which we 
can imagine, is the right, the real one, because both are 
mixed up with good and evil. According to the Dualists, 
there is beyond this universe one where there is only hap- 
piness and only good and, what is much dearer to them, 
where there will be no more necessity of being born and 
reborn, of living and dying. No more death there ; no 
more disease. It will be eternal happiness, where they 
will be in the presence of God for all time and enjoy God 
forever. They believe that all beings, from the lowest 
worm up to the highest angels and gods, will all, sooner or 
later, come to that world where there will be no more 
misery. But this world will never stop ; it goes on in- 
finitely, although moving in waves and falls. Although 
moving in cycles, it never ends. The number of souls 
that are to be saved, that are to be perfected, is infinite. 
Some are in plants ; some are in lower animals ; some are 
in men ; some are in gods, but all of them, even the high- 
est gods, are imperfect, are in bondage. What is the 
bondage ? The necessity of being born and the necessity 
of dying. Even the highest gods die. What are these 
gods, again ? They mean certain states, certain offices. 



164 Universal Spiritualism 

For instance, Indra, the king of gods, means a certain of- 
fice ; some soul which was very high has gone to fill that 
post in this cycle, and after this cycle he will be born again 
as man and come down, and the man who is very good in 
this cycle will go and fill that post in the next cycles So 
with all these gods ; they are certain offices which have 
been filled alternately by millions and millions of souls, 
who, after filling that office, all came down and became 
men. Those who do good works in this world, help oth- 
ers, but with an eye to reward, hoping to reach heaven or 
to get praise of their fellow men, must, when they die, 
have the benefit, the reward of these good works, so they 
become these gods. But that is not salvation ; salvation 
never will come through this hope of reward. Whatever 
man desires the Lord gives him that. Men desire power ; 
they desire prestige ; they desire enjoyments as gods, and 
they get these desires fulfilled, but no effect of work can 
be eternal ; the power of any work will be finished after a 
certain length of time ; it may be eons, but after that it 
will be finished, and these gods must fall down again and 
become men and will be given one more chance for libera- 
tion. The lower animals will come up and become men, 
become gods, perhaps, again become men, or go back to 
animals, until will come the time when they will get rid 
of all this desire for enjoyment, this thirst for life, this 
clinging on to the " me and mine." This " me and mine," 
according to the Hindu sects, is the very root of all the 
evil in this world. If you ask a Dualist whose child this 
will be if it is not mine, he will say, " It is God's " ; if my 
property is not mine, " It is God's." Everything should 
be held as God's. 

Now, these Dualistic sects in India are great vegetarians, 



Vedanta Philosophy 165 

great preachers of non-killing of animals. But their idea 
about il is quite different from that of the Buddhist. If 
you ask a Buddhist, " Why do you preach against killing 
any animal?" he says, "We have no right to take any 
life," and if you ask a Dualist, " Why do you not kill any 
animal?" he says, "Because it is the Lord's." So the 
Dualist says that this ' ' me and mine " is to be applied to 
God and God alone; He is the only "me," and every- 
thing is His. When a man has come to that state that he 
has no " me and mine," when everything is given up to 
the Lord, when he loves everybody and is ready even to 
give up his life for a little animal, without any desire for 
reward, then his heart will be purified, and when the heart 
has been purified then into that heart will come the love of 
God, which is inherent in every soul. This God is the 
very centre of attraction for every soul, and the Dualist 
says, " If you take a needle and cover it up with clay that 
needle will not be attracted by a magnet, but as soon as 
the clay has been washed off, the needle will be attracted 
by the magnet." God is the magnet, and the human soul 
is the needle, and his evil works the dirt and dust that 
cover it. As soon as the soul is clear it will come by its 
natural attraction to God and remain with Him forever, 
but will remain eternally separate from God. Each soul, 
if it wishes, can take any form ; will be able to make a 
hundred bodies if it wishes or to have no body at all, if it 
so desires. It will be almost almighty, except that it will 
be unable to create ; that belongs to God alone. None, 
however perfect, can manage the affairs of this universe ; 
that belongs to God. But all souls, when they become 
perfect, become happy forever and live eternally with God. 
This is the Dualistic statement. 



1 66 Universal Spiritualism 

One other idea the Dualists preach. They protest 
against the idea of praying to God, " Lord, give me this 
and give me that." They think that should not be done. 
If man must ask some material gift he should ask inferior 
beings for that ; ask one of these gods, or the angels, or a 
perfected being for such things. God is only to be loved. 
It is almost a blasphemy to pray to God, " Lord, give me 
this and give me that." According to the Dualists, there- 
fore, what a man wants sooner or later he will get, by 
praying to one of the gods, but if he wants salvation he 
must worship God. This is the religion of the masses of 
India. 

Above them are what we call the qualified non-Dualists, 
with whom the real Vedanta philosophy begins. They 
make the statement that the effect is never different from 
the cause ; the effect is but the cause reproduced in another 
form. If this universe is the effect and God the cause, it 
must be God Himself — it cannot be anything but that. If 
any nature exists separate from God Himself, it also will be 
infinite ; so will be time and space. Thus multiplied, 
there will be millions of infinite and independent exist- 
ences, which is not reasonable. They start, therefore, 
with the assertion that God is both the efficient and material 
cause of this universe ; that He Himself is the Creator, and 
He Himself is the material out of which the whole of nature 
is projected. The word which is " creation " in your 
language is, in Sanskrit, exactly " projection," because 
there is no sect in India which believes in creation, as it is 
regarded in the West, a something coming out of nothing. 
It seems at one time there were a few that had some such 
idea, but they were very quickly silenced. At the present 
time I do not know of any sect that believes this. What 



Vedanta Philosophy 167 

we mean by creation is projection of that which already 
existed. Now, this whole universe, according to this sect, 
is God Himself. He is the material of this universe. We 
read from the Vedas, " As the uranabha spider takes the 
thread out of his own body and draws it in, even so this 
whole universe has come out of that Being." 

If the effect is the cause reproduced, the question is, 
how do we find this material, dull, unintelligent universe 
produced as the manifestation of God, who is not material, 
who is eternal intelligence? How, if the cause is pure and 
perfect, is the effect quite different ? What do these quali- 
fied non-Dualists say ? Theirs is a very peculiar theory. 
They say that these three existencies, God, and nature, and 
the soul, are One. God, is, as it were, the soul ; and 
nature and souls are the body of God. Just as I have a 
body and I have a soul, so this whole universe and my soul 
also are the body of God, and God is the soul of my soul. 
Thus God is the material cause of the universe. The body 
may be changed — may be young or old, strong or weak — 
but that does not change the soul at all. It is the same 
eternal existence, manifesting through the body. Bodies 
fall off one after another, but the soul does not change. 
Even so this whole universe is the body of God, and in 
that sense it is God. But the change in this universe does 
not affect God. Out of this material He creates this uni- 
verse, and at the end of a cycle His body becomes finer, it 
contracts, and at the beginning of another cycle it becomes 
expanded again, and out of it evolve all these different 
worlds. 

Now, both the Dualists and the qualified non-Dualists 
admit that the soul is by its nature pure, but through its 
own deeds it is made impure. The qualified non- Dualists 



168 Universal Spiritualism 

express it more beautifully than the Dualists, by saying 
that the soul's purity and perfection become contracted and 
again become manifest, and that what we are now trying to 
do is to manfest the intelligence, the purity, the power 
which is natural to the soul. Souls have a multitude of 
qualities,' but not that of almightiness or all-knowingness. 
This is the nature of the soul. It has become contracted 
through past misdeeds, every wicked deed contracts the 
nature of the soul, and every good deed expands the nature 
of the soul, and these souls are all part of God. " As from 
a mass of fire millions of sparks fly, of the same nature, the 
same ingredients, yet not the same, so even from this 
infinite Being, God, these souls have come. Each has the 
same nature, yet not the same." Each has the same goal. 
The God of the qualified non -Dualists is also the Personal 
God, the repository of an infinite number of blessed 
qualities, only He is interpenetrating everything in the 
universe. He is immanent in everything and everywhere, 
and where the Scriptures say that God is everything they 
say that that means that God is interpenetrating every- 
thing, not that God has become the wall, but that God is 
in the wall. There is not a particle, not an atom in the 
universe where He is not, both internal and external. 
The souls are all limited ; they are not omnipresent ; each 
soul is very, very limited, but they get expansion of their 
powers and become perfect. No more is there birth and 
death for these souls ; they live with God forever. 

Now we come to the Advaitist, the last, and what we 
think the fairest flower of philosophy and religion that any 
country in any age has produced, where human thought 
attains its highest expression and even goes beyond the 
mystery which seems to be impenetrable. This is the non- 



Vedanta Philosophy 169 

Dualistic Vedantism. It is too abstruse, too elevated to be 
the religion of the masses. Even in India, its birthplace, 
where it has been ruling supreme for the last three thou- 
sand years, it is not able to permeate the masses. As we 
go on we will find that it is difficult for even the most 
thinking man and woman in any country to understand 
Advaitism. We have made ourselves so weak ; we have 
made ourselves so low. We may make great claims, but 
we naturally want to lean on somebody else. We are like 
little, weak plants, always wanting a support. How many 
times I am asked for a " comfortable religion " ; very few 
ask for the truth. Fewer still dare to learn the truth, and 
fewest of all dare follow truth in its practical bearings. It 
is not their fault ; it is all the weakness in the brain. Any 
new thought, especially of a high kind, creates a disturb- 
ance, wants to make a new channel, as it were, in the brain 
matter, and that unhinges the system, throws men off their 
balance. Then come a hundred sorts of surroundings, a 
huge mass of ancient superstitions, paternal superstition, 
class superstition, city superstition, country superstition, 
and beyond this all the vast mass of superstition that is in- 
nate in the human being. Yet there are a few brave souls 
in this world who dare conceive the truth, who dare take it 
up, and who dare follow it up to the last end. 

What does the Advaitist declare? He says, if there is a 
God, that God must be both the material and the efficient 
cause of the universe. Not only is He the Creator, but He 
is also the created. He Himself is this universe. How 
can that be? God. the pure, the spirit, has become this 
universe ? Yes ; apparently. That which all ignorant 
people see, this universe, does not exist. You and I and 
all these things we see, what are these ? Mere self-hypno- 



170 Universal Spiritualism 

tisnis ; there is but One Existence, the Infinite, the ever ex- 
isting One. In that Existence we dream all these various 
dreams. It is the Atman, beyond all, the Infinite, beyond 
the known, beyond the knowable ; in and through That we 
see this universe. It is the only reality. It is this table j 
It is the' audience before me ; It is the wall ; It is every- 
thing, minus the name and form. Take the form of the 
table, take away the name ; what remains is that It. The 
Vedantist does not call It either He or She ; these are 
fictions, delusions of the human brain ; there is no sex in 
the soul. People who are under illusion, who have become 
like animals, see a woman or a man ; living gods do not see 
men or women. How can they who are beyond every- 
thing have any sex idea ? Every one and everything is the 
Atman — the Self — the sexless, the pure, the ever blessed. 
It is name and form that makes the difference. It is the 
name, the form, the body, which are material, and they 
make all this difference. If you take off these two differ- 
ences of name and form, the whole universe is One ; there 
are no two, no three, but One everywhere. You and I are 
one. There is neither nature, nor God, nor the universe, 
only that One Infinite Existence, out of which, through 
name and form, all these are manufactured. How to 
know the Knower? It cannot be known. How can you 
see your own Self? You can only reflect yourself. So all 
this universe is the reflection of that One Eternal Being, 
the Atman, and, as the reflection falls upon good or bad re- 
flectors, good or bad images are cast up. So, in the mur- 
derer, the reflector is bad and not the Self. In the saint 
the reflector is pure. The Self — the Atman — is by its own 
nature pure. It is the same that is reflecting itself from 
the lowest worm to the highest and most perfect beings, 



Vedanta Philosophy 171 

the one Existence of the universe. The whole of this uni- 
verse is One Unity, One Existence, physically, mentally, 
morally and spiritually. We are looking upon this One 
Existence in different forms and creating all these images 
upon it. To the being who has limited himself to the con- 
dition of man this world is what he sees. To the being 
who is on a higher plane of existence it may become like 
heaven. There is but one Soul in the universe, not two. 
It neither comes nor goes. It neither reincarnates nor 
dies, nor is born. How can it? How to die? Where 
to go? All these heavens and all these earths, and all 
these places are vain imaginations of the mind. They do 
not exist ; never existed in the past and never will exist in 
the future. 

I am standing here, omnipresent, eternal. Where can I 
go ? W T here am I not already ? I am reading this book of 
nature. Page after page I am finishing and turning over, 
and one dream of life goes away. Another page of life is 
turned over ; another dream of life comes, and it goes 
away, rolling and rolling, and when I have finished my 
play I let it go and stand aside, throw away the book, and 
the whole thing is finished. What does the Advaitist 
preach ? He dethrones all the gods that ever existed, or 
ever will exist in the universe and places on that throne the 
Self of man, the Atman, higher than the sun and moon, 
higher than the heavens, more infinite than this infinite uni- 
verse itself. No books, no Scriptures, no science can 
ever imagine the glory of that Self, that appears as man, 
the most glorious God that ever was, the only God that 
ever existed, ever exists, or ever will exist. I am to wor- 
ship, therefore, none but my Self. " I worship my Self," 
says the Advaitist. Whom to bow down to ? I salute my 



172 Universal Spiritualism 

Self. Whom to go to for help ? Who can help me, the 
Infinite Being of the universe ? These are fools' dreams, 
brain hallucinations ; who ever helped any one ? Never. 
Wherever you see a weak man, a Dualist, weeping and 
wailing for help from somewhere above the skies it is be- 
cause he does not know that the skies also are in him. He 
wants help from the skies, and the help comes. We see 
that it comes ; but it comes from within, and he mistakes it 
as coming from without. Sometimes a sick man is lying 
on his bed, and he hears a tap on the door. He gets up 
and opens the door. Nobody. He goes back to his bed, 
and again he hears the tap. He gets up and opens the 
door. Nobody. At last he finds that it was his own heart 
beating, which he interpreted as a knock at the door. 
Thus all this vain search after the gods above, gods of the 
skies, gods of the water, after it has completed the circle, 
comes back to the point from which it started — the human 
soul — and man finds that the God for whom he was search- 
ing in every hill and dale, for whom he was seeking in 
every little brook of water, in every temple, in little 
churches, in worse heavens, that God whom he was even 
imagining as sitting in heaven and ruling the world, is his 
own Self. I am He, and He is I. None but I was the 
God, and this little I never existed. 

Yet, how could that perfect God have been in this delu- 
sion ? It never was. How could a perfect God have been 
dreaming? He never dreamed. Truth never dreams. 
One cloud is there ; another comes and pushes it aside and 
takes its place. Another comes and pushes that one out. 
The very question where did this illusion arise is absurd. 
Illusion arises from illusion alone. There will be no illusion 
as soon as the truth is seen. Illusion always rests upon il- 



Vedanta Philosophy 173 

lusion ; it never rested upon God, the Truth, the Atman. 
You are never in the illusion ; it is illusion that is in you, 
before you. "As before the eternal blue sky clouds of 
various hue and color come ; they remain there for a short 
time and again disappear, leaving it the same blue, eternally 
standing, even so are you, eternally pure, eternally perfect ; 
you are the veritable gods of the universe ; nay, there are 
not two ; there is but One." It is a mistake to say you and 
I ; say "I." It is I who am eating in millions of mouths ; 
how can I be hungry ? It is I who am working in an infinite 
number of hands ; how can I be inactive ? It is I who am 
living the life of the whole universe ; where is death for me ? 
I am beyond all life, beyond all death. Where to seek for 
freedom, for I am free by my nature ? Who can make me 
bound, the God of this universe ? What are these books for 
me ? These Scriptures of the world are but little maps, 
wanting to delineate my glory, who am the only existence 
of the universe. Thus says the Advaitist. 

" Know the truth and be free in a moment." All the 
darkness will vanish. When man has seen himself as one 
with the infinite Being of the universe, when all separate- 
ness has ceased, when all men, all women, all angels, all 
gods, all animals, all plants, the whole universe has been 
melted into that oneness, then all fear disappears. Whom 
to fear? Can I hurt myself ? Can I kill myself ? Can I 
injure myself? Do you fear yourself? Then will all sor- 
row disappear. What can cause me sorrow ? I am the 
One Existence of the universe. Then all jealousies will 
disappear ; of whom to be jealous ? Of myself? Then all 
bad feelings disappear. Against whom will I have this bad 
feeling? Against myself? There is none in the universe 
but me. And this is the way, says the Vedantist, to this 



174 Universal Spiritualism 

knowledge. Kill out this differentiation, kill out this 
superstition that there are many. " He who, in this world 
of many, sees that One ; he who in this mass of insentiency 
sees that One Sentient Being ; he who in this world of 
shadow catches that Reality, unto him belongs eternal 
peace, unto none else, unto none else." 

These are the salient points of the three steps which In- 
dian religious thought has taken in regard to God. We 
have seen that it began with the Personal, the extra cosmic 
God. It went from the external to the internal cosmic 
body, God immanent in the universe, and ended in identify- 
ing the Soul itself with that God, and making one unit 
Soul of all these various manifestations in the universe. 
This is the last word of the Vedas. It begins with Dual- 
ism, goes through the qualified monism and ends in the 
perfect monism. We have seen, also, how very few in this 
world can come to the last, dare believe in it, and fewer 
still dare act according to it. Yet we know that therein 
lies the explanation of all ethics, of morality and all spirituality 
of the universe. Why is it that every one says, " Do good to 
all others ' ' ? Where is the explanation ? Why is it that all 
great men have preached the brotherhood of mankind, and 
greater men have preached the brotherhood of all lives ? 
Why is it so ? Because, whether they were conscious of it 
or not, behind all that, through all their irrational and 
personal superstitions, was peering forth the eternal light of 
the Self, denying all manifoldness, denying that there are 
two existences in the universe and asserting that the whole 
universe is but One. 

Again, the last word gave us one universe, which, 
through the senses we see as matter, through the intellect 
as souls and through the spirit as God. To the man who 



Vedanta Philosophy 175 

throws upon himself evils, which the world calls wicked- 
ness and evil, this very universe will change and become a 
hideous place ; to another man, who wants enjoyments, 
this very universe will change its appearance and become a 
heaven, and to the perfect man the whole thing will vanish 
and become his own Self. 

Now, as society exists at the present time, all these three 
stages are necessary ; the one does not deny the other ; one 
is simply the fulfilment of the other. The Advaitist, the 
qualified Advaitist, does not say that Dualism is wrong ; it 
is a right view, but a lower view. It is not wrong. It is 
on the way to truth ; therefore, hurt none ; let everybody 
work out his own vision of this universe, according to his 
own iojeas. Hurt none, injure none, deny the position of 
none ; take man where he stands, and, if you can, lend him 
a helping hand and put him on a higher platform, but do 
not injure and do not destroy. All will come to truth in 
the long run, "when all the desires of the heart will be 
vanquished, then this very mortal will become immortal " ; 
then the very man will become God. 

Comment is unnecessary. The Swami has spoken for 
India as well as for himself. This is a first-hand utterance 
of a native Hindu who has uttered faithfully the tenets of 
his faith. We offer as a supplement to this setting forth of 
Oriental philosophy some beautiful verses by a Western 
poet, Richard Realf, which impress us as a beautiful con- 
necting link between the best thought of the Occident and 
the best thought of the Orient. 



176 Universal Spiritualism 

SPIRIT AND ITS EXPRESSION 

Fair are the flowers and the children, but their subtle sug- 
gestion is fairer ; 

Rare is the roseburst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it 
is rarer, 

Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it 
is sweeter; 

And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning outmastered 
the meter. 



Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the grow- 
ing; 

Never a river that flows, but a majesty sceptres the flowing; 

Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger than he did 
enfold him, 

Nor ever a prophet foretells, but a mightier seer hath fore- 
told him. 



Back of the canvas that throbs the painter is hinted and 

hidden ; 
Into the statue that breathes the soul of the sculptor is 

bidden ; 
Under the joy that is felt lie the infinite issues of feeling ; 
Crowning the glory revealed is the glory that crowns the 

revealing. 



Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symboled 

is greater ; 
Vast the create and beheld, but vaster the inward creator ; 
Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift 

stands the giving ; 
Back «f the hand that receives thrill the sensitive nerves of 

receiving. 



Vedanta Philosophy 177 

Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the 

doing ; 
The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of 

the wooing ; 
And up from the pits where these shiver, and up from the 

heights where those shine, 
Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the essence 

of life is divine. 



CHAPTER XI 

SCANDINAVIAN BELIEFS CONCERNING THE 
SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE 

Though the old Norse mythology has become largely 
familiar to frequenters of modern opera,— thanks to the 
mighty genius of Richard Wagner, who has drawn freely 
from mythologic sources and endowed the old heroic tales 
with new life and vigor , — it was not till Marie Corelli gave 
us her fascinating Norwegian story " Thelma " that the 
people of England and America came to realize that the 
race of Vikings may not be yet extinct in rugged pictur- 
esque Norway, where the majestic fjords and the general 
sublimity of natural scenery form an appropriate back- 
ground for those splendid, but tragic, beliefs and cere- 
monies to which Olaf and his clan still cling with undy- 
ing tenacity. 

We cannot study the religion and philosophy of India 
without becoming soon convinced that the warm, and often 
depressing, climate of the peninsula and its adjacent 
islands has had much to do with the introspective tenden- 
cies of the inhabitants. The temperature is usually high, 
the heat often intense, and in such conditions external ex- 
istence often seems a bore rather than a blessing. Amid 
such surroundings has grown up a profound theosophy and 
also a sense of indifference to all external things, which, 
when carried to its extreme, has begotten distaste for all 
physical exertion. 

In Greece, one of the loveliest countries of the earth 

178 



Scandinavian Beliefs 179 

and blessed with a charming climate, grew up an aesthetic 
cult, heroic on the one hand (as in Sparta), effeminate on 
the other. Love of life reached its maximum point in the 
Greece of classic days, and this led to a distaste for the 
idea of any cessation of physical existence. 

Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, the ancient homes of 
Norse mythology, differ very widely in all respects from the 
placid Orient and from beauteous Greece and the lovely 
islands of the Mediterranean ; and, as Professor Tyndall 
was wont to declare, climate has very much to do with 
religious sentiment and all phases of its expression, we are 
not surprised to find that Scandinavia has proved the seat 
of a war-like faith, which, though hard and tempestuous, 
like the physical aspects of the country, in many of its 
details is by no means destitute of sterling heroic qualities 
which may profitably be incorporated as a much-needed 
backbone for many modern creeds. 

Though at root all religions and philosophies are one, — 
for all start from the same point, viz., human endeavor to 
decipher the hieroglyphics and solve the riddle of the 
universe, — the multifarious endeavors of humanity to ac- 
complish this herculean, and always unfinished, task have 
given birth to the innumerable speculations which divide 
the world into sects and parties, which can never be 
harmonized except on the basis of a truly synthetic 
philosophy. 

Taking, as we do, a sympathetic rather than a harshly 
critical view of the world's many creeds and doctrines, we 
see good in all, but the whole of truth in none ; therefore 
do we consider it irrational and impious to seek to con- 
vince the whole earth that one form of religious doctrine 
and worship is entirely true, while all other cults are 



180 Universal Spiritualism 

dangerous and false. When Christianity began to make 
headway in northern Europe it freely incorporated Norse 
traditions, which still prevail to some appreciable extent, 
even as in southern Europe this same eclectic Christianity 
took to itself the temples of paganism and gave the names 
of saints to the older gods and goddesses. The Christian 
church has proved extremely flexible and adaptable when- 
ever it has been ruled by an accommodating priesthood, 
though whenever some few men of stern prophetic temper 
have held for a while the reins of command, no temporiz- 
ing or conciliatory policy has been tolerated. The genial 
side of Christianity is soft as butter and smooth as oil, but 
its relentless, persecuting aspect is sharp as steel and 
remorseless as flame. We cannot understand so complex 
a system as the Christian, ranging as it does from simple 
Theism to revolting phases of idolatry, without tracing its 
many origins to the manifold earlier systems from which 
it freely borrowed and out of which its hybrid aspects 
grew. 

But, protest as we may against inconsistencies, we can- 
not shut our eyes to the fact that human nature itself, as 
well as the elements all around us, are extremely incon- 
sistent in behavior, giving rise to a belief in many con- 
flicting deities, even though all may originally proceed from 
one ineffably good source and eventually make manifest 
the goodness of their origin. Those are not wanting who 
claim that Norse mythology is of Atlantean origin, and 
that it closely resembles the mythologies of Greece and 
Rome, which were derived from the same source. Those 
of our readers who wish to pursue this interesting question 
are advised to peruse "Atlantis" by Ignatius Donnelly, 
and also a work on the same subject of profound arch- 



Scandinavian Beliefs 181 

geological interest by Scott Eliott (Theosophical Publishing 
Society). It is not our immediate purpose to peer into 
such remote and necessarily dim origins, but simply to 
briefly map out a few of the leading features of the ancient 
Scandinavian religion which has left many a trace in those 
popular parts of northern Europe which afford delightful 
summer camping -grounds and opportunity to gaze upon 
the wondrous glory of the midnight sun. Dr. Alger says 
that "many considerations combine to make it seem likely 
that at an early period a migration took place from 
southern Asia to northern Europe, which constituted the 
commencement of what afterwards grew to be the great 
Gothic family. The correspondence of many of the 
leading doctrines and symbols of the Scandinavian 
mythology with well-known Persian and Buddhist notions, 
— notions of a purely fanciful and arbitrary character, — 
is too peculiar, apparently, to admit of any other explana- 
tion. 

" But, the germs of thought and imagination transplanted 
thus from the warm and gorgeous climes of the East to 
the snowy mountains of Norway and the howling ridges 
of Iceland, obtained a fresh development, with numerous 
modifications and strange additions, from the new life, 
climate, scenery, and customs to which they were then ex- 
posed. The temptation to predatory habits and strife, 
the necessity for an intense though fitful activity arising 
from their geographical situation, the forceful spirit 
nourished in them by their actual life, the tremendous 
phenomena of the Arctic world around them, — all these 
influences break out to our view in the poetry, and are 
reflected by their results in the religion of the Northmen." 
Following this telling quotation, may we not add also that 



182 Universal Spiritualism 

as the spirit- world with which we are all in closest touch 
is the temporary home of those of our own race and kin 
who have recently laid off their mortal robes, we do 
actually receive impressions from this surrounding 
psychic zone which builds up still further a system of be- 
lief and practice congenial to the immediate condition of 
ourselves and our unseen coadjutors? That one con- 
sideration, estimated at its due worth, would almost suffice 
to answer the innumerable queries constantly propounded 
concerning the diversity of views expressed by communicat- 
ing intelligences, who, in every land and to every race, 
have some special message to deliver which does not al- 
together tally with what is elsewhere received from the 
denizens of the world of spirits. Again and yet again are 
we compelled to insist that communications may be 
thoroughly genuine and yet at variance with each other, 
because the act of dropping a material body neither trans- 
forms character nor introduces the freed spirit to any greater 
possession of knowledge than is warranted by previous 
growth and aspiration. 

A war-like people enter into close communion with de- 
parted warriors with whom they are in intimate affinity, 
and just as the Japanese now declare that warrior spirits 
assist them on the battle-field, and that these are often 
their former comrades, so did the hardy Norsemen in days 
of old declare the same. Valhalla, the hall of Odin, 
chief of Norse divinities, is pictured in the Eddas as a 
place of judgment as well as of glory. Some of the de- 
scriptions are martial and terrific in the extreme; spears 
and all instruments of war figure plenteously in Odin's 
magnificent, though barbarous, abode. Valiant souls, 
who while on earth were the heroes in distinguished 



Scandinavian Beliefs 183 

battles, are received with great honor at the celestial 
court ; these are the elect of Odin, who causes the 
Valkyrs, white-clad virgins with flowing ringlets, to wait 
on them as cup-bearers. Every morning at cock-crow 
these heroes go forth to battle, and are often seriously 
wounded in their desperate encounters, but every evening 
their wounds are completely healed and they are furnished 
with a luxurious banquet. Such, no doubt, was regarded 
by the ferocious Norsemen as a blissful life in Paradise, 
and as they loved fighting on earth, so they conceive that 
they would fight in heaven. 

It was from Sweden, a land in which such vivid myth- 
ologic ideas had taken abiding root, that Swedenborg 
came forth to give to the astonished peoples of Europe in 
the torpid eighteenth century his graphic delineations of 
many heavens and many hells all constructed upon the 
plan of dominant affection at their base. Valhalla con- 
tains no women, only the most valiant among heroic men ; 
but it is by no means the whole of heaven. Vingolf, the 
Hall of Friendship, stands beside the Hall of the Slain, 
and here are troops of noble women, for there are goddesses 
as well as gods in Norse mythology. Then there are the 
still higher and far more beautiful heavens, the abode of 
the rarely-named Omnipresent One, the true All-Father, 
who will finally come forth when this manifested universe 
shall cease to exist, and build a new and yet more glori- 
ous one. 

Concerning terms of admission to any heaven or banish- 
ment to any hell, we are told that the path to glory is only 
through cultivation of all the heroic virtues, while the road 
to infernal states is always through the practice of deceit 
and falsehood. Not unreasonably did those hardy people 



184 Universal Spiritualism 

associate strength with goodness and feebleness with vice, 
and in so doing they taught a doctrine in complete accord 
with our common word virtue, which is but a translation 
of the Latin virtus •, which certainly implies both strength 
and courage. Those who die in arms are called the 
"Chosen of Odin"; all who pass from earth after lives 
of " despicable ease" or who die of sickness have no 
bright future immediately awaiting them ; such souls find 
themselves in Hela, a gloomy cavern where there seems 
to be but little active misery, though there is no active joy. 
Perjury, adultery and murder are considered hateful 
crimes, and for these offenses penalties of a severe character 
are meted out in the future state. Stern morality, though 
consistent with a barbarous code, is proclaimed in Norse 
•mythology. 

As in the Zoroastrian faith, so in the Scandinavian also 
do we find one supreme note triumphing above all others — 
the ultimate destruction of evil and the everlasting per- 
petuity of good. There is to be a universal battle, and at 
the end of the " Twilight of the Gods," a term applied to 
the present divided creation in which light and darkness 
are constantly at strife, all discord will cease and harmony 
prevail forever. 

With the quaint and peculiar superstitions of the Norse- 
men regarding their finger and toe nails and other minute 
particulars, we need not greatly concern ourselves ; there 
is doubtless a symbolic meaning to be attached to the 
statement that no one should die with unpaired nails, — 
this probably means that no slightest duty should be 
neglected, for the entire life produces its result even in 
minutest matters. 

The beautiful story of " Baldur the Good " reminds 



Scandinavian Beliefs 185 

us of many other tales of self-sacrificing heroes who will- 
ingly die that others may enjoy a larger and more glorious 
life. In Bonn's Antiquarian Library we find a masterly 
edition of Percy's translation of Mallet's "Northern An- 
tiquities," in which the scholarly editor, Blackwell, argues 
with conclusive force in favor of the view we strenuously 
hold that the Norsemen looked forward to the ultimate 
glorification of the entire human race, though the virtuous 
in "Gimle" and the vicious in " Nastrond " would re- 
spectively experience joys and sorrows of indefinite dura- 
tion previous to the glorious age of unmarred felicity which 
awaits the whole creation. 

No writer has better described the funeral customs of 
the Vikings than has Marie Corelli, who shows us Thelma's 
father sailing out to sea in his burning ship, departing 
from his robe of flesh triumphantly, as his ancestors had 
gone before him, while the vessel burns around him, and 
when he has expired the ship he had loved so well sinks 
at once into the waves. No suicide, no thought of self- 
destruction mars the heroic splendor of this awe-inspiring 
scene. The aged warrior has grown feeble and knows that 
his earthly end has come. Not till it is evident that his 
moments are rapidly nearing their close does he call upon 
his ever faithful attendants to bear him to his ship ; then, 
when the life within his frame flickers so feebly that at any 
instant it may expire, he gives the order that the ship put 
out to sea and be ignited, and the brave soul has left its 
earthly tenement before it is possible that the blazing ves- 
sel can sink into the ocean. Cremation, rather than burial, 
has always been the choice of heroic peoples. To bury 
the dead into the ground is to pollute the earth, and en- 
danger the health of the living, and it seems to encourage 



186 Universal Spiritualism 

and perpetuate materialistic and gruesome practices which 
encourage mental morbidity as well as physical disease. 
The crematories of to-day in all civilized countries, which 
are rapidly supplanting burial grounds or cemeteries, are not 
only highly sanitary and therefore most commendable, they 
are also calculated to do much to end the necromantic 
rites, and the hideous beliefs connected with them, which 
invariably cluster around a place of interment. Not every 
one would like to see a beloved parent go out to sea in a 
ship of flame, knowing that his flesh had descended into 
the depths of the ocean, whether buried or otherwise ; but 
so romantic an ending of the earthly career was only in- 
tended for the naval warriors even in the old Norse days. 
The sea-kings were not the only heroes, and amid the 
snows of Norway many another type of warrior was buried 
with his splendid horse and all the accoutrements of battle. 
Thomas Carlyle summed up his glowing description of the 
old Vikings in these majestic words: "Worthily bury 
the old hero at once in the sky and in the ocean." No 
doubts were entertained by their survivors that these men 
of valor and renown entered upon a glorious life beyond 
and still took interest in the affairs of earth, a faith which 
has persisted through all ages and lives to-day unquencha- 
bly in the inmost heart of our humanity. 



CHAPTER XII 
ETRUSCAN VIEWS OF THE FUTURE LIFE 

Among ancient peoples who have long since ceased to 
figure among the active nations of the earth, the inhabitants 
of old Etruria have left the most copious monumental 
records of their spiritual faith behind them. Written an- 
nals we cannot consult, for these have not been discovered ; 
but Etruscan sepulchres remain, and from these we can 
gather an immense amount of curious and satisfactory in- 
formation. Monuments are often far older than docu- 
ments, and frequently much more reliable, as they are not 
so subject to transcription and interpolation, a fate which 
has befallen a large portion of the comparatively ancient 
manuscripts now placed at our disposal. 

The Etruscan tombs are hewn out of the living rock of 
cliffs and hills : they therefore bid long defiance to the 
ravages of time and storm ; and though many millennia 
old, still remain in so good a state of preservation that they 
are easily deciphered by any visitors provided with the 
necessary scholarly equipment. 

Etruscan burial places were invariably outside of city 
limits, and often beyond a city's walls existed another city 
of tombs. Stone-hewn sepulchres, of massive and imposing 
design, are not infrequently discovered ; but the ordinary 
"house of the departed" was built on the plan of the 
abodes of the living, though on a smaller scale. 

All sorts of clothing, ornaments, and implements were 
taken to these reposing places of vacated earthly forms, 

187 



188 Universal Spiritualism 

and much of this accessory material has long outlived the 
pulverization of the body to which it was once considered 
tributary. Dr. Alger, from whom we again quote, says 
that "an important element in the religion of the Etrus- 
cans was the doctrine of genii, a system of household 
deities who watched over the fortunes of individuals and 
families, and who are continually shown on the engravings 
in the sepulchres as guiding, or actively interested in, all 
the incidents that happen to those under their care. It 
was supposed that every person had two genii allotted to 
him, one inviting him to good deeds, the other to bad, 
and both accompanying him after death to the judgment 
to give in their testimony and turn the scales of his fate. 
This belief, sincerely held, would obviously wield a power- 
ful influence over their feelings in the conduct of life." 
Etruscan views of divinities were similar to Egyptian 
and to Roman concepts, and we may well believe that 
the latter were largely influenced by the former. A mul- 
titude of deities were honored in Etruria, each having 
some particular station and office, a special form of rep- 
resentation, and a cycle of traditions. The Goddess of 
Fate was pictured with wings to indicate her swiftness, 
and with hammer and nails to show that her decrees 
were unalterably fixed. The supreme divinity Tinia re- 
sembles the Roman Jupiter Tonans with thunderbolt in 
hand. Twelve "consenting gods" compose Tinia's 
council and bear the august title " Senators of Heaven." 
These awful beings reside in the innermost recesses of 
Heaven, and it is not lawful to pronounce their names. 
They were not considered eternal, but only of very long 
duration, and beyond them were the yet more mysterious 
and awe-inspiring " Shrouded Gods," who ruled all things. 



Etruscan Views of the Future Life 189 

These were much like the inscrutable " Necessity" which 
constituted the dim background of ancient Greek theology. 

The Etruscans also indulged in weird conceptions of an 
Underworld, ruling over which they imagined two mysteri- 
ous beings, Mantus and Mania. 

Animal sacrifices were frequent, and human sacrifices 
occasional, among these strange ancient people. 

We can readily understand many references to the aw- 
ful heathen rites of many gentile nations which occur in 
the Psalms and elsewhere in the Bible, when we learn from 
Macrolius that in Etruria boys were sacrificed at an 
annual festival in honor of Mania, queen of the Under- 
world. " They offered their sons and their daughters 
unto devils," — thus did Hebrew prophets and minstrels 
summarily dispose of the abominable orgies against which 
the seers in Israel waged constant and unrelenting warfare. 
In later days and milder times these awful propitiatory 
rites were supplanted by innocent offerings of flowers and 
vegetables to the divinities ; poppies and onions were 
especially popular in Etruria for the later sacrificial rites. 

Belief in future existence unmistakably exercised a 
dominating influence over the Etruscan mind, and, as with 
all other peoples, the realms beyond death were pictured 
as extremely various, ranging from a paradise of bliss to 
dark and frightful regions where penalties were meted out 
according to the gravity of the offenses which had called 
them forth. Death-bed scenes are depicted most vividly 
on Etruscan tombs ; patriarchs are represented surrounded 
by weeping groups who can scarcely endure the pain of 
parting from such wise counselors ; friends wave mournful 
farewells to their weeping loved ones; some of the departing 
are represented as quite resigned to their departure, while 



190 Universal Spiritualism 

others go shrinkingly, as though reluctant to leave the 
earth and fearful of what may lie beyond. In this respect 
the experiences of humanity seem to have been about 
equally varied among all peoples in all ages, so much so 
that Cardinal Newman in " The Dream of Gerontius " 
attributes to a dying man — though a devout Catholic calling 
upon the sacred names of Jesus and Mary in his extremity, 
— the same feeling of terror at the approach of the disrup- 
tion of bodily consistency, as has been experienced by 
pagan peoples on whom the light of the gospel according 
to Christianity had never shone. 

There are but two reasonable interpretations of this 
world-wide reluctance to leave the material body. First, 
a natural shrinking from a change which is never fully 
• understood. Second, an unconquerable conviction that 
the soul will get its just deserts, whatever such may be, in 
the future world. And as a large percentage of lives are 
by no means flawless, even in the estimation of the livers, 
it cannot be wondered at that in the solemn moment of 
transition, while bidding farewell to the accustomed 
earth, and often to near and dear friends from whom to 
part must always be a painful wrench, the soul should 
tremble somewhat at the mysteriousness of the undis- 
covered, even though the realms beyond be guided by the 
same unerring purpose and directed through the changeless 
operations of the same great law which guides us now 
and will continue to guide our path forever. 

There are no proofs that the Etruscans believed in the 
translation of human souls to the heavens of the divinities, 
but they clearly portrayed much that was beautiful and at- 
tractive as awaiting the upright in the world to come. 
Into the realms of bliss many gates are shown surrounded 



Etruscan Views of the Future Life 191 

by emblems denoting welcome ideas of deliverance from 
trial and the enjoyment of rest. While the guilty soul is 
terror-stricken at the approach of some spectral shape 
which comes to escort it to a place of darkness and grief, 
the heroic soul is transported through the " Eighth Gate " 
into the charming regions of the blessed. 

In this brief mention of the Etruscan faith revealed 
through art, we have but added one more testimony to the 
numberless array of testimonies everywhere accumulating, 
all pointing to humanity's world-wide and ineradicable 
confidence in a life beyond physical transition, and also in 
many diverse conditions obtaining in the spirit-world. 



CHAPTER XIII 

SPIRITUAL CONCEPTIONS IN CHINA AND 

JAPAN 

Though the home of Buddhism was originally in 
India, it is in Thibet, China and Japan that we must now 
look to find its hundreds of millions of adherents. This 
form of religion, — though very pure at its fountain-head, 
and truly philanthropic in its every original sentiment, as 
it emanated from that great spiritual teacher with whose 
illustrious career Sir Edwin Arnold has made the entire 
English-speaking world familiar, — did not long retain its 
pristine simplicity, but like many older and younger faiths, 
it soon became overlaid with superstitious doctrines and 
ceremonies most of which were reversions to old beliefs 
and practices rather than newly invented acquisitions. 

The three chief varieties of Buddhism, which divide it 
into Northern, Middle and Southern, represent considera- 
ble difference of thought as well as of practice. Northern 
Buddhism seems more inclined to take on a heroic aspect 
than does Southern, and this is easily explained when we 
refer simply to geographical situation, for climate always 
affects, to some degree, the feelings and the conduct of a 
people. 

China, the mysterious " Celestial Empire," and yet 
more mysterious Thibet, — the enclosed and awful country 
concerning which we hear much that is startling and for- 
bidding, — are two lands of Asia which seem peculiarly 
out of touch with Western thoughts and habits, but Japan 

192 



Spiritual Conceptions in China and Japan 193 

is a friendly neighbor to America and all English-speaking 
people arc disposed to treat the Japanese as brothers, while 
they look with suspicion upon "John Chinaman," 
particularly in the United States, though he is very 
prominent nearly all over America, particularly as a 
laundryman and in California as also a cook and general 
domestic. The Chinaman looks so unlike a European or 
an American that we are always apt to emphasize the word 
"foreigner," and the much more disagreeable term 
"alien," whenever we see his costume, watch his manners 
and listen to his conversation, and most of all when we 
gaze upon the curious characters which denote his lan- 
guage. Our Japanese neighbors present no such very 
unusual appearance, because they readily adopt a western 
dress and manner, and generally adapt themselves, ap- 
parently without much difficulty, to the new state of affairs 
which at once confronts them when they have left their 
Flowery Kingdom for lands remote across the seas. 

That the Chinese have a religion of their own, partly 
Buddhistic and partly Confucian, — though Confucianism is 
an ethical and philosophical rather than a distinctively re- 
ligious system, — is well known to all who gain their confi- 
dence or watch their doings. The gaudy "Joss Houses" 
which constitute one of the popular sights of " Chinatown " 
in San Francisco and wherever there is a Chinese colony, 
represent only the crudest and shallowest expressions of the 
religion of China, precisely as the tawdry pictures and 
images in Mexican churches exhibit only the most superfi- 
cial and uninviting aspects of Roman Catholicism. To the 
Oriental intellect subtle metaphysical abstractions appeal, 
even though the surface of Oriental life is often tawdry 
and squalid in the extreme. Cultivated Chinamen, who 



194 Universal Spiritualism 

may often be met in Washington and other American 
cities, are frequently Confucians and very often they are 
rational philosophers entirely free from the superstitious be- 
liefs and customs of the ignorant among their compatriots. 
Wong Chin Foo and several other highly intellectual and 
cultured Chinamen who have contributed in the English 
tongue to many periodicals enjoying world-wide circula- 
tion and fame, have presented us with doctrines in the 
name of Confucius which have proved on examination to 
be fully as noble morally, and as enlightened spiritually, as 
any which have proceeded from any other sources. But, as 
Confucianism does not speak very definitely concerning 
any future life or communion with the spirit-world, it is not 
easy to gather precisely the views of educated Confucians 
on these important themes; we may, however, safely con- 
clude that by far the largest proportion of the Mongolian 
race not only venerate ancestors, but distinctly believe in 
their constant presence as guiding, protecting and inspiring 
influences. In the war between Russia and Japan, which 
ended with the close of the summer of 1905, news came 
constantly from Japanese officials confirming more and 
more the fact that the brave Japanese were greatly sus- 
tained in their heroic warfare by their unfaltering spiritual 
faith, and by faith we do not mean mere traditional belief, 
but confident certainty that spirit- friends were sustaining 
them in hours of conflict, and giving unmistakable signs of 
approval when heroic work was done. Warfare is not the 
highest human occupation, — and we may all sincerely trust 
and devoutly work as well as pray, that a happy time may 
speedily come when war will be unknown, — still we cannot 
dispute the fact that spirit-helpers are often present on bat- 
tle-fields where they once fought and, so long as they have 



Spiritual Conceptions in China and Japan 195 

not outgrown their belief in the justifiability and even 
necessity for strife to settle disputes and prevent incursions 
of tyranny and the loss of national integrity, they will un- 
doubtedly continue to afford efficient aid to those who are 
nerved to more successful combat when buoyed up by the 
sublime assurance that they are not fighting alone, but in 
the presence of their heroic ancestors and with their full 
approval. Some touching incidents have been related to us 
by friends who have lived in Japan and entered sympathet- 
ically into the life and feelings of its people. At eventide 
the ancestral spirits and those who have recently departed 
from the physical frame are said to gather in some ap- 
pointed place and receive offerings from those who admire 
and venerate them. No festival domestic or national is 
kept without this ceremony. 

Many of the Chinese and Japanese practices intended to 
honor the departed are crude externally, but they are often 
beautiful when stripped of unnecessary accretions and 
readily commend themselves to our sympathy and esteem. 
Even the offering of food and libations to the departed, 
which is a very ancient and almost universal custom, is not 
reprehensible in the least when we consider that Oriental 
philosophers have always taught that all external substances 
are but veils which hide an incorporeal element. As the 
physical body is sustained by the grosser part, so is the 
psychical body fed by the inner substance. This teaching 
accounts for all the sacrificial offerings made to divinities 
through all ages and in all countries. It is surely not nec- 
essary to slay animals, much less to slaughter human 
beings, to appease hungry divinities : such barbaric orgies 
have no place in any refined system of thought or practice ; 
but simple offerings of fruits and flowers to the national 



ig6 Universal Spiritualism 

heroes, and to friends in general, is a gentle poetic custom 
which serves to keep always before the mental vision of 
those who make the offerings the thought of the intimate 
nearness of the spiritual to the material world. 

Japan, especially since the marriage of Sir Edwin Arnold 
to a Japanese lady and her reception as a welcome guest in 
the highest British society, has seemed quite near to the 
cultured elements in the English-speaking world, and 
though many Japanese now profess a modified form of 
Christianity and express great readiness to assimilate them- 
selves with western life and thought in general, the native 
of Japan nearly always retains a large amount of his an- 
cestral faith unless he becomes a confessed agnostic, as 
some students do, in which case he is apt to pride himself 
upon his lack of knowledge concerning all spiritual ques- 
tions, a species of extraordinary intellectual pride which 
characterizes also the pretentious culture of the west during 
a certain early period in scientific research among too easily 
self-satisfied investigators. 

To obtain as nearly authentic a statement as possible of 
the actual religious condition of Japan at the time of this 
writing we refer our readers to an intensely interesting let- 
ter written by the well-known American presidential candi- 
date, William Jennings Bryan, sent by him from that 
charming country and published in the Cleveland Plain 
Dealer y February 18th, 1906. 

Little that could be added to what is already generally 
known would throw any new light upon the faith or prac- 
tice of the inhabitants of eastern Asia ; they are now freely 
mingling among us and as we become better acquainted 
with our interesting brown and yellow neighbors we shall 
assuredly cease to feel any sentiment of estrangement to- 



Spiritual Conceptions in China and Japan 197 

wards them. The splendid and enormous ships which now 
cross and recross the Pacific waters with amazing speed 
and regularity have already brought Japan almost to the 
door of America. From San Francisco, Seattle and Van- 
couver we can go in comfort in a very few weeks into the 
very heart of eastern Asia, and when we get there we shall 
find very much to interest us and more than a little to ad- 
mire, though also much which we may not be able to approve. 

The glory of true Spiritualism is that it breaks down 
barriers and unifies humanity wherever its ennobling 
teachings are accepted and made the guide of life. We 
cannot, and we do not, profess to believe that spiritual 
communion is, or ever has been, the exclusive property of 
any church or sect ; it is the common heritage of the entire 
human race. Though the Occident rather than the 
Orient is the head-centre of present-day revelations, this is 
only because during the revolution of the cycles first one 
country and then another becomes prepared to be the chief 
enlightener of the world. In days of old Asia was the 
source whence spiritual light radiated over the globe ; then 
there came a time when Europe, and finally America, took 
precedence of all other continents as the head-centre of 
spiritual enlightenment. Now we see unmistakable signs 
of the rapidly nearing approach of a truly universal illu- 
mination in which all continents will participate. Asia will 
be revivified, Africa will be no longer dark, Europe will be 
united and pacified ; America will be redeemed from 
Mammon-worship and set truly free ; Australia will become 
a great new seminary for the bringing forth of a truly 
eclectic spiritual philosophy. 

Such are the signs of these stirring and eventful times. 
Never again can old superstitions enslave humanity as 



198 Universal Spiritualism 

formerly, for the hour has already struck which has 
awakened humanity from its lethargy and called it, in 
stentorian tones, to shake off the lethargy in which it has 
so long been wrapped. If the modern spiritual movement 
has done no more it has certainly compelled a searching 
investigation of the foundations upon which faith in im- 
mortality must rest. At this late date to . endeavor to 
prove that there is communion with the spirit-world seems 
in many centres an altogether superfluous task ; but though 
multitudes are fully assured of life's endless continuity, 
there are very many yet who still sit in the shadow of 
doubt and some who dwell in the caverns of positive 
denial. Let those who know proclaim their knowledge, 
and let those who as yet know not hold themselves ready 
to be informed. 

The following intensely interesting account of Japanese 
life and spiritual realization is taken from an article from 
a brilliant contributor to the Banner of Light, who 
signs himself Mime Inness ; his contribution was published 
February 24, 1906. 

Karma and Shintoism in Japan 

When Admiral Togo, after his successive victories, took 
occasion to thank, in the most formal way, the spirits of 
the dead for their assistance in the war in which they had 
lain down their earthly lives, to most Americans it seemed 
an act of Eastern barbarism, strangely injected into 
modern life. 

How could a great naval captain like Togo be so 
superstitious, so ignorant? 

It is, however, not strange that one reared, as is every 



Spiritual Conceptions in China and Japan 199 

Japanese, in the Shinto philosophy, should take occasion, 
as a thank offering, to recognize one of the most prevalent 
of Japanese ideas. 

The Japanese is reared not only upon the doctrine of 
Shinto, which is peculiar to his people, but the Buddhistic 
doctrines of preexistence and Karma enter equally into 
the make-up of his religious life. We in the West have 
but an indistinct idea of preexistence. Theosophists 
maintain the doctrine, but ordinary Christians, especially 
those reared in Calvinism, have spent all their religious 
lives in an effort to save their own individual souls from 
a hereafter which is represented to- be so horrible that 
escape from it is the one " consummation devoutly to be 
wished." 

But Oriental philosophy takes care of all this sort of 
thing in an entirely different way, a way which is almost 
inexplicable to the self-seeking Occidental. 

" In the first place," says the Jap, " my own soul is not 
a single thing. It is a term of reproach to me when one 
tells me derisively, < I can see that you have but one soul.' 
My soul cannot exist for an eternity hereafter unless it has 
already existed for an eternity before this life. 

" Eternity is an endless thing. Nothing can be endless 
if it have a beginning. The Occidental talks of a life in 
the future which has no end. Then it can have had no 
beginning ; for an endless thing with one end is endless. 
I must, therefore, have existed from all eternity if I am to 
live to all eternity. 

"Therefore, I know that my soul, in its preexistent 
states, has passed through many earth-lives, has had all 
the experiences which those preexisting lives imply. It is 
not, cannot be a single thing, one soul. It is a composite 



200 Universal Spiritualism 

of all the experiences of all past ages through which it has 
lived. In me to-day exist consciously the souls of all my 
kindred by heredity, and no small part of those other lives 
with which I have lived and by contact have partaken of. 
Hence, my ancestors, being those to whom I owe, not my 
existence alone, but all those attributes which make my 
soul what it is, are certainly worthy of my highest regard 
and worship. 

" Not only this " (and here comes in the Spiritualistic 
idea), " but these ancestors, as is natural, take in me and 
my living, the deepest interest. They surround my daily 
pathway, seeking in every way they can to enhance for me 
the good and to ward off the bad. What is more natural 
for the parent who dies than to maintain his interest in his 
child? You western Christians believe in a heaven to 
which a dying father goes and shuts from his knowledge 
everything in which, two minutes before he breathed his 
last, he was most deeply concerned ; or if you believe that 
he still has knowledge of the lives of his children, he is 
yet powerless to affect those lives for good or ill. This is 
still worse than total ignorance. For what is more 
devilish, what could be a greater hell, than to be com- 
pelled to sit supinely by and see the tortures of a child 
and be powerless to aid ? We know better than this. 
When we die and slough off the flesh, we do not change. 
We still love, and love implies aid. We still hover near 
and help bear the burden or share the joy of our children, 
making it greater by the sharing. 

" So, while we worship our ancestors, we know they are 
worthy of worship. Do you Occidentals still wish an 
angry God to punish sin ? He does punish it, not as- one 
angry, but as one who is just. Sin is not like the naughti- 



Spiritual Conceptions in China and Japan 201 

ness o( a child, to be punished by a slipper. It is a 
breaking of God's laws, which breaking always bears its 
own consequences. If I violate the law of gravitation and 
walk off the roof of the house, I fall, not as a punishment 
for violating the law, but because a violation of the law en- 
tails its own consequences. 

"So if I do wrong, I suffer. No pardon, no repent- 
ance avails to wash away the sin. It entails its own 
punishment, leaves its own scar. Thereby I am taught 
not to sin. 

" But the consequence of my violation of God's law is 
that the scar remains. I may not work out my own 
redemption, until death has seized me. The consequences 
of that wrong go on just the same, and when next my un- 
dying soul seeks physical embodiment, the stain of my 
sin is still on it, the law is still operative and justice still 
demands of me the working out of my own redemption. 
The 'sins of the father are visited upon the children' is 
true, not as a punishment, but as a simple, just working- 
out of the rule of the law. This is Karma. Evil in my 
life I know is just, not for what I have done in this em- 
bodiment, but for what I did in another body. Joy is 
mine, not always for my own merits, but for the good I 
did when here before. Is not this justice? Is not this 
right ? Does not this explain why life is as it is ? Is not 
this a good and sufficient reason for my ancestor wor- 
ship?" 

This is why the Japanese see so little that is attractive in 
Christianity. This is why they are Spiritualists. This is 
why Shintoism and Buddhism are to them the living forces 
that they are. 

This is why this life, seeming such a trifling part of the 



202 Universal Spiritualism 

real life, is with so little hesitation thrown away by a 
Japanese in battling for a good cause. 

If Western civilization could take a leaf from the book 
of the little men of the islands, creeds might suffer, but 
the real life of Christ would be more purely lived and then 
indeed would "death be swallowed up in victory," being 
no longer the " King of Terrors." 

Such, in brief outline, is a fair sample of Japanese 
spiritual conceptions. 



CHAPTER XIV 

MOHAMMEDAN VIEWS OF THE SOUL AND 
ITS DESTINY 

Sale's widely- circulated version of the Koran having 
familiarized multitudes with the text of the faith of Islam, 
it is generally presumed that the fairly educated public is 
everywhere aware of the leading tenets of the faith pro- 
fessed by the several hundred millions who follow the 
prophet of Mecca and worship God under the name of 
Allah. Such, indeed, in barest outline, may be the case ; 
a searching scrutiny of Mohammedanism will, however, 
reveal an esoteric as well as an exoteric faith. Sir Edwin 
Arnold's beautiful saying : 

" All is love 
Viewed from Allah's home above " 

strikes a very different note from that harshly sounded by 
those who see only the literal surface of the Koran, which 
closely resembles the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures in 
much of its external form, and from them it was indis- 
putably, in large measure, compiled. 

Mohammed's career was a most remarkable one, and no 
matter from what viewpoint we may attempt to study it, 
we can only remain convinced that the Arabian camel- 
driver, who became renowned as the founder of a system 
of religion which to-day numbers its adherents by hundreds 
of millions, was a man of no ordinary capacity or common 

203 



204 Universal Spiritualism 

enterprise. Like all personal founders of systems, he who 
founded the faith of Islam was one who could and did ac- 
commodate himself, with extraordinary readiness, to the 
demands of the age in which he lived and the people 
whom he sought to influence. There are many dis- 
crepancies in the Koran, and many fanciful tales and 
floating legends, but so there are in all Bibles ; therefore, 
in this respect the Koran and its teachings cannot be re- 
garded as in any sense unique. 

Mohammed has been called an impostor, an epileptic, 
who imagined his distorted ravings to be heaven-sent 
illumination, a wily schemer who only sought his own 
aggrandizement, and much else that is uninviting and dis- 
creditable. But, though this wonderful " prophet " was 
by no means an immaculate hero, he was undoubtedly a 
man of many excellent parts, though vice as well as virtue, 
and weakness as well as strength, figured in his character 
and influenced his career. 

Upholders of strictly monogamic marriage relations can- 
not endorse polygamy, even in the restricted sense in 
which Mohammed taught or, at least, permitted it; but 
when we remember that in his day polygamy and polyandry 
ran riot in those very lands in which he sought to spread 
his influence, we may trace the hand of a shrewd states- 
man in the teaching of a man who limited the wives of a 
" true believer" to four, and was perfectly willing that the 
"faithful" should live in a strictly monogamous relation 
if they so preferred. Had it been the aim or mission of 
Mohammed to fashion a restricted cult adapted only to a 
limited section of humanity, his system would probably 
have been far less ingenious and complex than we find it 
to be. James Freeman Clarke, in " Ten Great Religions " 



Mohammedan Views of the Soul 205 

cla'sses Mohammedanism among missionary and eclectic 
systems, in which category he also places Buddhism and 
Christianity, while Brahmanism he places among the 
purely ethnic cults which seem indigenous to a certain soil 
and incapable of successful migration or transplantation. 

As Mohammed's period was about six hundred years 
after the inception of the Christian system, he had much 
material to work with which had been partly Christianized 
but had not accepted the authority of the institutionalized 
Christian church, which, by that time, had grown numer- 
ous and powerful, and in many districts oppressive also. 

There is a strange fascination attaching to the earlier 
years of Mohammed's ministry, for it was not till after 
thirteen years of peaceful endeavor to propagate his sys- 
tem that he had recourse to the sword or even permitted 
warfare as a means of religious propaganda. It was only 
— so all reliable historians have declared — after the failure 
of peaceful measures that Mohammed allowed his band of 
devoted, though decidedly ambitious, followers to resort 
to intimidation to convert " unbelievers" to the prophet's 
creed. At one time Spain was a stronghold for Moham- 
medanism, and it must be admitted that the Mussulman 
was often a better civilizer than the Christian, and cer- 
tainly not more bigoted or fanatical. At present no 
European nation, except Turkey, is under Mohammed's 
sway, but large portions of Asia and Africa are completely 
given over to the faith of Islam, and in many instances 
that form of religion seems well adapted to the general 
need. 

There are two great Mohammedan sects or parties ; one 
called Sunnees, the other Sheeahs. The former are usually 
very rigid in their adhesion to the letter of the Koran and 



2o6 Universal Spiritualism 

the observance of every ceremonial injunction of their 
faith ; the latter are more elastic in their interpretations 
and applications and are regarded as somewhat heretical 
by their more strenuously observing brethren! Turks, 
Arabs and Tartars are nearly all Sunnees ; Persians are 
usually Sheeahs. The most bigoted among both parties 
lay great stress upon minute ritual practices and indulge in 
uncharitable comments upon all who differ from them in 
even the smallest particular; but all highly intelligent 
Mohammedans, and there are many such, while holding 
fast to what may be termed the fundamentals of their .faith, 
are by no means rigid in the case of minor details, nor do 
they condemn everybody whose practice differs from their 
own. 

Mohammedan tenets as expounded in Chicago in 1893 
were quite liberal in many respects, indeed, Alexander 
Russell Webb, who had become a convert to Moham- 
medanism and was authorized to proclaim its teachings at 
the Parliament of Religions, said very little that would not 
be classed as liberal teaching in modern America. It is a 
great mistake to suppose that the devotees of any system 
are all narrow-minded or bigoted, or that any religion 
traced to its foundation is devoid of charitable and reason- 
able sentiments. The Sufis, who are Mohammedan The- 
osophists, constitute an esoteric party and put the same 
sort of symbolic interpretation upon the Koran that Philo 
of Alexandria placed upon the Pentateuch. Sufism is 
Gnosticism, and from the Gnostic standpoint every holy 
saying has an interior meaning which is discoverable by 
the application of a system similar to Swedenborg's doc- 
trine of Correspondence, which is employed as an all- 
sufficing key to unlock the inner mystery contained in 



Mohammedan Views of the Soul 207 

even the obscurest and the most outwardly revolting state- 
ments and commands attributed to Deity or to some of the 
heavenly messengers who figure as prominently in the 
Koran as anywhere else in reputedly inspired literature. 
All Mohammedans believe in angels of various ranks and 
degrees, ranging from infernal to celestial. Eblis cor- 
responds to Satan, and the story of his fall from heaven 
agrees well with popular Christian tradition. 

Predestination is also a cardinal point in the faith of 
Islam, and often it is so taught that absolute fatalism is the 
only conclusion one can draw from the utterances of Mo- 
hammedan teachers ; there are, however, those among 
them who greatly modify this doctrine until it comes to 
bear a close resemblance to the Jewish doctrine as set forth 
in the Talmud, which declares that everything is regulated 
by divine providence except human conduct ; and, unless 
this exception be made, it is impossible to see how any 
idea of vice or virtue, punishment or reward, in this world 
or any other, can possibly be entertained. It is unthinka- 
ble that any soul can be held responsible for purely auto- 
matic action, and if Allah has decreed every event so that 
whatever occurs is divinely necessitated, it is impossible to 
believe that the Supreme Being, or even any tutelar di- 
vinity, can be displeased with tke carrying out of his own 
will and the fulfilment of his own purpose. Calvinism is 
a Christian phase of the worst features of Mohammedanism 
as any student of the Koran can readily perceive, and no- 
where has a more monstrous absurdity been taught than 
that God punishes, or is angry with human beings for 
acting automatically in accordance with divine decrees. 

There is, however, a bright side to the doctrine of pre- 
destination which Theists and Universalists have often 



208 Universal Spiritualism 

gladly perceived, and that is the idea that the whole uni- 
verse is subject to the sovereign sway of a perfectly benefi- 
cent ruling intelligence, and that in consequence thereof 
the lot of every individual is divinely appointed and ap- 
portioned ; therefore, though at present it appears to our 
dim vision that some are God's beloved and others objects 
of divine disfavor, when we see more clearly we shall come 
to know that those conditions we call hells are just as 
necessary to cosmic harmony as those we call heavens, 
and that when the purpose of all events is clearly per- 
ceived every one will be satisfied with the condition to 
which he has been assigned. 

It is said that Mohammed, in a vision, beheld a mighty 
tablet whereon was inscribed every event which Allah had 
• decreed must occur before the Day of Judgment. There is 
no possible reconciliation between God's absolute sover- 
eignty and complete control over every event between the 
dawn of creation and the end of the world, — a doctrine 
taught with the greatest possible insistence by Mohammed, 
— and the other doctrine which is strenuously advocated in 
the Koran that God rewards obedience and punishes dis- 
obedience to his will. Without some degree of freedom to 
act as one pleases there can be no disobedience : there can 
be only automatic fulfilment of a predetermined purpose ; 
it stands to reason, therefore, that limited human freedom 
must have been one of Mohammed's concepts, otherwise 
he taught what was evidently self-contradictory, and must 
have been too intellectually blind, as was Calvin, to realize 
the contradiction in his own most positive assertions. The 
cruel and foolish statements of Calvinism and Mohammed- 
anism are all of a piece, for they all alike grow out of the 
monstrous attempt to teach two diametrically opposed 



Mohammedan Views of the Soul 209 

doctrines in one breath. This same fatal absurdity mars 
the theology of the Athanasian Creed, which has long been 
the source of bitter controversy among members of the 
Church of England, clergy and laity alike being hopelessly 
divided in their views concerning it. Augustine fell into 
the same error as did Mohammed and Calvin, and the great 
mistake of them all is in seeking to reconcile what is essen- 
tially irreconcilable. Predestination can be accepted 
rationally in one of two ways : we may believe that God is 
perfectly satisfied with the condition of affairs throughout 
the universe because it is the divine will that things should 
be as they are ; or we may believe that foreordination only 
concerns the immutable relation between cause and effect, 
— therefore that God has not predetermined what exact 
course any individual shall pursue, but has only so reg- 
ulated the course of events that our reaping in this, and 
in every other state of existence, must be in exact accord- 
ance with the nature of our sowing, because it is the in- 
evitable outcome thereof. Either of these doctrines can 
be held by a devout and rational mind, but no one who 
yields to reason or employs sane logic can possibly hold a 
fatalistic doctrine to the effect that man is merely a 
machine for executing God's designs, and though all parts 
of the machine equally fulfil the divine purpose, the 
creator of the machine is pleased with one part and re- 
wards it, but is angry with another part and condemns it. 

Neither can any reasoning mind believe that we are 
saved by believing certain doctrines and condemned if we do 
not believe them, and at the same time hold that those 
who have done good shall enter heaven, and those who 
have done evil shall be cast into a hell of fire. Doing 
good and doing evil, as every observer of human conduct 



210 Universal Spiritualism 

knows, is something totally apart from believing or disbe- 
lieving some theological doctrine, even though it be con- 
fessed that all beliefs must, to some extent, exert an in- 
fluence on conduct ; and for that reason no belief seriously 
entertained is altogether unimportant. 

To grasp fully Mohammed's doctrine of the spirit-world 
one must make such allowance for the glowing imagery in 
which he clothed his speech and the intensely material 
models on which he founded his descriptions of the bliss of 
Paradise. Suffice it to say that when denuded of all 
superfluous accretions • Mohammed's detailed accounts of 
the life to come are founded upon a close acquaintance 
with the demands of undeveloped human nature, not yet 
emancipated from the grip of sensationalism ; and these ac- 
commodations are supplemented by a considerable amount 
of knowing contact with the " borderland," beyond which, 
in spite of all his rapturous claims to communion with the 
highest heavens, we do not believe Mohammed ever really 
penetrated. Those who have read Swedenborg's " Heaven 
and Hell " and believe in his seership can readily credit 
Mohammed's glowing accounts; those, on the other hand, 
who fully endorse Emerson's essay on Swedenborg will cer- 
tainly discredit a large amount of Mohammed's particular - 
ization. For our own part, we believe the Mohammedan 
system to be a strange compound of truth and error, en- 
forcing many moral lessons, temperance in particular, with 
great earnestness, but not presenting as a whole any very 
edifying views of the spiritual universe, unless we accept a 
purely esoteric interpretation of all Koranic metaphors. 

Concerning the final judgment, we must admit that 
Mohammed's account of it is not destitute of ethical value, 
for he evidently, when discoursing on that stupendous 



Mohammedan Views of the Soul 211 

theme, has forgotten his fatalism and brought to the front 
the true and solemn doctrine of each soul's individual re- 
sponsibility. Allah is pictured as relentless but supremely 
just. Every soul is rewarded or punished in precise ac- 
cord with the amount of good or evil done by thought and 
word and deed, and the Scales of Justice are adjusted to 
weigh as accurately according to the Koran as according to 
the Egyptian Book of the Dead. 

Mohammedans who are strictly orthodox, profess to be- 
lieve that on the day of judgment the entire human family 
will be assembled before the judgment seat. Mohammed 
will lead the procession, and will appear as intercessor on 
behalf of all who have professed the faith of Islam. Proph- 
ets of other religions will also appear and intercede on be- 
half of their respective followers. Gabriel, the mighty 
archangel, who figures with equal prominence in Christian 
mythology, will hold a balance so stupendous that when 
suspended one scale will cover heaven and the other scale 
will cover hell. The Koran declares that at the judgment 
seat all shall be judged with such exact impartiality that no 
deed, good or evil, "the weight of an ant," shall be over- 
looked. No one soul shall be able to obtain anything on 
behalf of another. There is no vicarious sacrifice to 
plead, no substituted or imputed righteousness in Moham- 
med's creed, but every soul is weighed and judged in 
exact accordance with individual righteousness or demerit. 
Mohammedanism in this respect teaches a doctrine which 
certainly has its roots in Judaism rather than in Christian- 
ity, and from Jewish sources it was without question 
largely derived. 

Predestination is utterly absent from Mohammed's 
picture of the judgment, for the sentence passed on every 



212 Universal Spiritualism 

soul is utterly without favoritism, though, as it is claimed 
that " true believers " have lived less wicked lives, for the 
most part, than unbelievers, they as a rule receive the 
milder sentences. There is a teaching to the effect that 
no Mohammedan will remain in hell forever, though 
idolaters may never escape from a place of suffering if by 
their wicked lives they have earned the doom of entering 
it. Idolatry had to be extirpated, so said Mohammed, and 
he found no surer way for creating a profound horror of it 
than by declaring that it was the one sin above all others 
which would receive most awful condemnation at the day 
of judgment. 

So great is the discrepancy among Mohammedans 
as to the duration of the period of judgment that some 
have contended that the judgment of the whole human 
family will be completed in " the twinkling of an eye," 
while others have stretched it in their imagination to 
fifty thousand years. All souls must eventually cross the 
bridge Sirat, which is described as "thinner than a hair 
and sharper than a razor," and that bridge spans in one 
frail arch the immeasurable distance over hell from 
earth to paradise. Curious interpretations are given of 
Sirat, ranging from the purely metaphysical to the grossly 
literal, evidencing, in the case of Mohammedanism, as 
with all other cults, the influence of refinement and bar- 
barity of thought upon the same symbolism. 

Once again we acknowledge indebtedness to Dr. Alger 
for a vivid word-picture which he has drawn in the follow- 
ing sentences taken freely from the Koran. " As soon 
as the righteous have passed Sirat they obtain the first 
taste of their approaching felicity by a refreshing draught 
from ' Mohammed's Pond.' This is a square lake, a 



Mohammedan Views of the Soul 213 

month's journey in circuit ; its water is whiter than milk 
or silver and more fragrant than to be comparable to 
anything known by mortals. As many cups are set 
around it as there are stars in the firmament j and whoever 
drinks from it will never thirst more. Then comes 
paradise an ecstatic dream of pleasure — filled with spark- 
ling streams, flowing fountains, shady groves, precious 
stones, all flowers and fruits, blooming youths, circulating 
goblets, black-eyed houris, incense, brilliant birds, delight- 
ful music, unbroken peace. A Sheeah tradition makes the 
prophet promise to Ali twelve palaces built of gold and 
silver bricks laid in a cement of musk and amber. The 
pebbles around them are diamonds and rubies, the earth 
saffron, its hillocks camphor. Rivers of honey, wine, 
milk and water flow through the court of each palace, 
their banks adorned with various resplendent trees, inter- 
spersed with bowers consisting each of one hollow trans- 
parent pearl. In each of these bowers is an emerald 
throne with a houri upon it arrayed in seventy green 
robes and seventy yellow robes of so fine a texture, and 
she herself so transparent, that the narrow of her ankle, 
notwithstanding robes, flesh and bone, is as distinctly 
visible as a flame in a glass vessel. Each houri has 
seventy locks of hair, every one under the care of a 
maid, who perfumes it with a censer which God has made 
to smoke with incense without the presence of fire ; and 
no mortal has ever breathed such fragrance as is there 
exhaled. 

"Such a doctrine of the future life as that here set 
forth, it is plain, was strikingly adapted to win and work 
fervidly on the minds of the imaginative, voluptuous, 
indolent, passionate races of the Orient. It possesses a 



214 Universal Spiritualism 

nucleus of just and natural moral conviction and senti- 
ment, around which is grouped a composite of a score 
of superstitions afloat before the rise of Islam, set off 
with the arbitrary drapery of a poetic fancy, colored by 
the peculiar idiosyncrasies of Mohammed emphasized to 
suit his special ends." 

We have no reliable information concerning the atti- 
tude of Mohammedans in general as to their views on spirit- 
communion, though we know that they often lay stress 
upon the ministry of, angels and do not hesitate to aver 
that the faithful on earth are attended by celestial spirits. 
There is much to admire and much that is repugnant 
in Mahommedan theories of the spiritual universe, but 
sifting out its best elements and discarding what is un- 
worthy of credence and not calculated to advance any 
ethical purpose, we may well maintain that the prophet 
of Mecca deserves to be ranked among those intrepid 
religious leaders who have not been destitute of concern 
for human welfare, even though swayed by much personal 
ambition. 

When men arise in our own day like Joseph Smith who 
founded Mormonism, Cyrus Teed, the founder of "Ko- 
reshan Science," John Alexander Dowie with his scheme 
of non- Jewish Zionism, and other powerful and dominat- 
ing intellects who sway a multitude quite easily, we can 
understand something of the nature of Mohammed's in- 
fluence. 



CHAPTER XV 

ANCIENT JEWISH AND EARLY CHRISTIAN IDEAS 
OF THE SOUL AND OF SPIRIT-COMMUNION 

Without some knowledge of Jewish beliefs and practices, 
it must always prove extremely difficult for the average 
enquirer into primitive Christian doctrines and cere- 
monies to understand at all clearly what many of them 
signify or from what sources they have been derived. 
Far from being opposed to spirit-communion of an ele- 
vated type, a very large percentage of orthodox Jews have 
always affirmed it, though often only to a limited extent, 
and only in the case of very notable individuals. The 
much-disputed Bible story of the appearance of Samuel to 
Saul, which the fine American actor Wright Lorimer has 
deftly interwoven with the plot of his famous play "The 
Shepherd King," serves as a good illustration of very 
ancient Jewish tradition, and the modern playwright who 
makes the woman of En-dor declare that the apparition is 
through no art of hers, has interpreted aright the prophetic 
teaching concerning communion with departed friends and 
teachers. Jewish seers and sages always protested ve- 
hemently against necromantic arts and witchcraft. They 
condemned every form of sorcery, but this did not effect 
direct communion with the spirit-world apart from the 
practice of rites or incantations forbidden in the Law. 
The much-perverted picture of the soulless witch whom 
Saul consults, is taken, so far as stage-setting is concerned, 
far more from Shakespeare's " Macbeth " and from mediae- 

215 



2i6 Universal Spiritualism 

val fancy than from any words contained in the Bible 
record of Saul and his ultimate downfall. The woman at 
En-dor told no falsehood and behaved in no unseemly 
manner, and it is absurd to blacken her reputation, as 
many preachers have frequently done, in order to force 
into a narrative statements it does not contain in order to 
read them forth again as alleged divine warnings against 
Spiritualism. Such pulling cover over half-opened eyes is 
a dishonest trick, and has brought into deserved contempt 
the unfair attitude taken towards Spiritualism by sensational 
declaimers, notorious rather than famous, who have made 
capital among the unthinking and the too-easily influenced 
among their hearers, out of garbled and distorted versions 
of obscure ancient Biblical incidents. Samuel could not 
rescue Saul from the inevitable results of his own misdoing ; 
it was therefore useless for the rebellious king to " trouble 
the departed prophet when it was already too late to profit 
by that prophet's warning. But, far from Samuel con- 
demning Saul to everlasting perdition in consequence of 
his earthly crimes and follies, he contents himself with 
predicting that both Saul and Jonathan would " be with 
him " on the following day. No other reference can fairly 
be gathered from the story, if it be credited at all, than 
that Samuel in spirit-life could see a little further ahead 
than could those still on earth, and he knew and did not 
hesitate to reveal, that David was already appointed Saul's 
successor, and it would be vain at that late hour to make 
any attempt to keep the crown on the head of a monarch 
literally, when it had already fallen psychically. 

Two of the most notable instances of undying belief in 
spirit-communion among Jews who have not relinquished 
the traditions of their ancestors is the belief that Elijah 



Ideas of the Soul and of Spirit-Communion 217 

presides at circumcisions, and a seat is kept vacant at a 
festive board for Abraham on the first night of Succoth, 
the feast of Tabernacles or Booths. It is declared that, 
though unseen by mortal eye, the patriarch is spiritually 
present in the booth, or wherever the Succoth feast is 
spread, and if a stranger appears on that occasion he is 
regarded as sent by Abraham to represent him at the 
board, a stranger on such an occasion is therefore treated 
with extraordinary hospitality and his presence is regarded 
as an omen of good to the family of whose bounty he 
partakes ; Elijah is also believed to spiritually preside at 
the Seder service on the first and second evening of the 
feast of Passover. Should modern criticism dispose to a 
large degree of the personal Abraham or Elijah of pious 
tradition, the spiritual sense of a guiding presence need be 
in no degree disturbed, and it is indeed far easier to grasp 
the thought of many spiritual beings presiding at different 
festive boards in different parts of the world than to think 
of but one highly influential spirit presiding at the same 
time at so many banquets. But, should the personality 
of Abraham and of Elijah be rigidly adhered to in the 
most strictly orthodox sense, we are then only called upon 
to believe that spiritual radiations from a master-mind can 
be sent forth far and wide, and such is no doubt the case 
when we are successful in our oft-attempted demonstra- 
tions of mental telegraphy or telepathy. 

Prayers for the departed enter into every Jewish liturgy 
and form part of every regular Jewish service, and though 
the time-honored "Mourner's Kaddish " does little more 
than express faith in God and offer prayer for blessing on 
all Israel, it proves convincingly that the departed are not 
forgotten. " Only the body perishes " is a familiar phrase 



218 Universal Spiritualism 

from a popular introduction to the Kaddish, found in the 
Union Prayer-book employed by a very large number of 
congregations in America. 

Primitive Christianity owed its origin very largely to the 
intrepid zeal of Saul of Tarsus, who, as Paul the Apostle, 
is more widely quoted by doctrinal preachers than are even 
the Words of Jesus as recorded by the four evangelists, 
and it is from Paul's epistles that nearly every dogma of 
the Christian belief has been gradually upbuilt. The two 
Letters to the Corinthians set forth in general outline the 
doctrine and practice of those early Christian congrega- 
tions which, — during the formative period of Christianity 
being composed as they were partly of Jews and partly of 
Gentiles, — were often disunited internally and needed a 
strong disciplinary bond to organize and federate them and 
prevent their being destroyed by schisms. Paul was un- 
questionably a strong leader, a man of indomitable per- 
severance and of decidedly a fiery temper, capable of 
sustaining enormous burdens, even though handicapped 
(probably), by a physical constitution far from robust. 
His was one of those phenomenal careers which serve to 
demonstrate to a highly exceptional degree, the power of 
spirit over matter ; for, though seemingly weak in frame 
and afflicted with defective sight (so nearly all traditions 
tell us) despite his " thorn in the flesh " which he described 
as "a messenger of the adversary which buffeted him," 
he performed heroic work of many kinds and in most try- 
ing circumstances through that indomitable spiritual 
energy which he styled "the power of an endless life." 
No one can read the Paulinian epistles with any sort of 
penetration without seeing at a glance that their author 
was an uncompromising Spiritualist and a thoroughgoing 



i 



Ideas oi the Soul and of Spirit-Communion 219 

Universalis. u As in Adam all die, even so in Christ 
^hall all be made alive," is a text containing quite enough 
in itself to prove distinctly where the writer stood who 
penned such bold and definitely affirmative statements. 
To the mind of Paul the whole creation was safe in the 
keeping of the Almighty, and he certainly knew nothing 
of the nightmares of a false theology which, in later 
centuries, wrested the teaching in the Epistle to the Ro- 
mans to the upbuilding of a doctrine of election and 
reprobation which no Jew would ever have invented, 
and Paul never forswore Judaism : he merely added to it 
a Christian supplement. Beginning as an extremely 
orthodox Pharisee, an ultra-ritualist, this wonderful man 
went on to a point where he left all matters of ceremonial 
to the conscience and judgment of individuals. "Let 
every man be fully persuaded in his own mind " was Paul's 
doctrine; but let him never seek to thrust his personal 
convictions upon his neighbors. 

The story of Saul's conversion, as recorded in the 
"Acts " is a thrilling spiritualistic narrative. Journeying 
between Jerusalem and Damascus, he undergoes a 
spiritual experience which changes the entire current of 
his thought and life. Some radiant spiritual presence ap- 
pears to him and asks him why he persecutes the innocent 
at the instigation of the priests and magistrates. Like 
many highly emotional sensitives, he is completely over- 
whelmed with this amazing and altogether unexpected 
manifestation, and for three days is without sight and in a 
very precarious condition. On his recovery he is a 
changed man, and becomes the warm friend and ardent 
supporter of those whom he aforetime had relentlessly 
persecuted. 



220 Universal Spiritualism 

It should always be remembered that Paul was the chief 
exponent of the resurrection of Jesus, and he never 
claimed to have seen any risen flesh, but only to have 
held communion with the Master in a purely spiritual 
manner. Those highly intelligent English clergymen who 
are now outspoken in their advocacy of a purely spiritual 
view of the resurrection are not "heretics"; they are 
simply reiterating what the New Testament declares, for 
neither the gospels nor the epistles contain a fragment of 
evidence sufficient to prove that the primitive Christian 
church held any carnal doctrine of resuscitation, such as 
was forced upon it at a later date by those belligerent creed- 
makers who out-voted the more spiritually-minded in 
certain famous ecclesiastical councils and foisted upon the 
'church a repulsive and irrational dogma entirely at variance 
with the earliest Christian faith. 

We submit the following propositions to the discomfiture 
of all who insist upon a carnal instead of a spiritual view 
of the resurrection. ist, the gospels tell us that the 
reappearance of Jesus after his crucifixion occurred 
within about forty hours after his physical decease, and 
that the very watchers at the cross who remained to the 
end on Friday afternoon, did not recognize him in any 
physical manner when he showed himself to them, near 
the sepulchre in which his remains had been placed, at 
daybreak the following Sunday morning, and, moreover, 
when two disciples walked with him to Emmaus on the 
same evening, a distance of several miles, they did not 
recognize him by any physical test, but only as did the 
women in the morning, by purely subjective or internal 
evidences ; or when he specially made himself known to 
them by some essentially characteristic word or act. 



Ideas of the Soul and of Spirit-Communion 221 

2d. The solidification of the apparition to Thomas the 
skeptic was clearly an instance of what, in these days, is 
termed materialization, and the language of the gospel 
which records it is such as to prove abundantly to every 
unprejudiced reader that there was a distinct difference 
between the grosser nature of that demonstration and the 
more ethereal character of the appearances vouchsafed to 
the other disciples whose spiritual perceptions were more 
open than were those of Didymus. 

Spiritualists among the clergy, like Archdeacon Colley 
and others who have made an earnest investigation of 
psychic phenomena for several decades of years, em- 
phatically testify to the reality of spirit-materialization as 
well as all other phases of spirit-manifestation described in 
the New Testament; and though such men are "thorns 
in the side" of those literalistic theologians who can see 
nothing in the scriptural doctrine of resurrection deeper or 
more spiritual than physical revivification, their influence 
is continually spreading and that influence is becoming too 
great to be effectually offset by any endeavors on the part 
of bishops or any other dignitaries to lead the people back 
to outworn superstitions. Quite a sensation was created 
in London during the summer of 1904 by the action of the 
bishop of the diocese, who refused to permit a clergyman 
to preside at a lecture delivered by Mrs. Besant on "re- 
incarnation," which is the oldest form of the doctrine 
of resurrection of the flesh, and the only form in which it 
can reasonably be accepted by thoughtful minds. We 
can possibly believe that in order to work out a cycle of 
experiences we may need to take on successive bodies 
until at length a perfect structure is upreared. This was 
one of the doctrines preached by some primitive Chris- 



222 Universal Spiritualism 

tians, though there appears never to have been a time 
when the entire Christian church was unanimous in this 
regard. 

This doctrine, strenuously advocated by modern Theos- 
ophists, is at least thinkable and to many minds is highly 
credible ; but the attempted enforcement of an unthinkable 
dogma of physical resuscitation can only meet with total 
rejection at the hands of thinking clergymen as well as 
laymen. Nothing can be more disastrous to the cause of 
true religion than any endeavor to bolster up incredible 
assertions in religion's name, and this the wiser among 
church people are now beginning to see quite clearly. 
Even if the physical resurrection of Jesus was completely 
proved, it would throw no light whatever on the question 
of the raising of ordinary human bodies at the "last great 
day," and that for two very significant reasons: ist, — 
that Jesus is reported to have been in the tomb only forty 
hours and his body did not see corruption — this is insisted 
upon by orthodox Christian theologians; 2d — that it is 
expressly taught by the same expositors that he was not 
born in the ordinary way ; therefore so exceptional a 
body raised under such exceptional circumstances could 
offer no proof of the resurrection of ordinary bodies which 
have already seen corruption. 

Physiologists of the old school are wont to claim that 
the physique changes completely every seven years, and 
the celebrated French astronomer Camille Flamarion said 
long ago in his well known treatise " Dieu dans la Nature " 
that a physical organism can be completely reconstructed 
by natural physiological processes in less than one year, 
some parts of the structure changing within thirty days 
and other portions at different intervals, never extending to 






Ideas of the Soul and of Spirit-Communion 223 

much over eleven months. If Marie Corelli's statements 
in " A Romance of Two Worlds " are to be credited, there 
is an electric germ at the centre of every organism around 
which the body is formed and which escapes at the time 
of physical dissolution, though it never dies. This 
"germ" may be identical with the "permanent atom" 
vouched for by many Theosophists who are reincarnation - 
ists ; and this may be the nucleus of the new body which 
is to rise at the close of a cycle. The writer heard a very 
similar idea broached by English clergymen many years 
ago who, when seeking to expound the creedal phrase " I 
believe in the resurrection of the body," said that there is 
undoubtedly some germ at the centre of the organism 
which never dies and which constitutes the foundation of 
the "resurrection body." With such doctrines we have 
no dispute, but they bear no resemblance to the crude 
fancies of the poet Young, who, when describing the resur- 
rection, uses such grotesque expressions that much of his 
poetry is often looked upon as satire by thoughtful readers. 
Take the glowing imagery of Ezekiel 37 in which we can 
easily detect the prophetic view of the resurrection enter- 
tained in ancient Israel. A vision is described, in which 
description glowing metaphor is introduced. The whole 
House of Israel is represented under the figure of dry bones 
in a valley, to which the prophet effectually appeals, urg- 
ing them in the name of the Most High to come forth 
"out of their graves," — a purely symbolical expression, 
the significance of which is transparent, for the vision is 
interpreted in the very chapter in which it is described. 

It would be quite as reasonable to interpret Peter's 
vision described in Acts 10 literally as to insist that 



224 Universal Spiritualism 

people blind and stupid enough to see nothing grander 
in Peter's vision at Joppa than permission to eat pork 
and shellfish and other table "delicacies" forbidden by 
the Mosaic Law. Peter's vision, however, ,is explained 
and applied in the chapter which narrates it, wherein it 
is shown to teach a valuable and still greatly-needed lesson 
in universal brotherhood. 

The terms death and dead, as well as raised and resur- 
rection, are used frequently in Paul's epistles in a mystical 
or esoteric, and at the same time truly practical, sense. For 
example, people are described as "dead unto sin" and 
"raised to righteousness." Paul himself " dies " daily, 
and exhortations are given to those who are already 
"risen with Christ " to walk worthy of the high vocation 
to which they have been called. 

Much salutary spiritual and ethical teaching can be 
gathered from all such expressions, and we are fully justi- 
fied in making use of them, but they teach a far different 
doctrine than the irrational and carnal views which have 
been foisted upon the world by a secularized church in 
periods of degeneracy. 

As to communion with the spirit-world there seems no 
doubt on one point, viz., that it was on no other basis than that 
of conscious spirit-communion that the Christian Church 
was originally based. Not hearsay evidence, but actual 
living proof of intercourse with at least one who had actu- 
ally passed through death and demonstrated immortality. 
" Because I live ye shall live also " ; "I am he that liveth 
and was dead and behold I am alive fore ver more. ' ' 
These and many other passages of similar import may be 
cited to show that individual immortality conclusively 
demonstrated was the corner-stone of early Christianity. 



Ideas of the Soul and of Spirit-Communion 225 

In an elaborate work by Crowell, " The Identity of Primi- 
tive Christianity with Modern Spiritualism," an enormous 
array of proofs are marshaled to sustain this proposition ; 
and similar facts are arrayed in an equally conclusive 
manner in the writings of S. C. Hall and many other 
cultivated and brilliant writers of the nineteenth century, 
who did not hesitate to show that only a spiritualistic view 
of the New Testament explained its reasonableness. 

The many instances of spiritual manifestations recorded 
in the gospels cannot reasonably be explained away un- 
less we are prepared to deny that the so-called " miracles," 
and many other phenomena, have any other than a purely 
figurative or subjective meaning ; and though such a view 
may prove acceptable to rationalistic Unitarians, it will al- 
ways be met with determined opposition by all who seek to 
uphold traditional Christianity. 

Mrs. Besant, in her "Esoteric Christianity," in which 
she discusses the "Lesser Mysteries," deals largely, but 
not exclusively, with the symbolic aspects of gospel narra- 
tives, and to such a volume many people are now turning 
who are eager to escape the unsatisfactory alternative which 
has often been presented, either to endorse the crudest or- 
thodox literalism or else to deny in toto the marvelous tales 
with which the gospel narratives abound. When Strauss 
published the first edition of his "Life of Jesus" while a 
very young man, he satisfied some of his skeptical col- 
leagues, and gave much delight to many people outside of 
Germany as well as within its borders, by insisting upon an 
altogether mythical view of the alleged miraculous, but so 
feeble an interpretation of the origin of several " myths " 
as Strauss attempted, served to cast serious discredit upon his 
conclusions, at least among inquiring people who are never 



226 Universal Spiritualism 

likely to rest content with mere dismissal of a difficult 
problem in an extremely commonplace manner. No better 
illustration of the defect of Strauss' method can be given 
than its attempted explanation of the tradition that Jesus 
walked on the water by deciding that he simply walked 
on the seashore and from that trivial circumstance, — 
which could have excited no reasonable wonder, seeing 
that to walk by the sea is a familiar every-day occurrence, — 
there arose the legend that Jesus was seen by his disciples 
walking on the waves. Credulity is heavily taxed to ac- 
cept so far-fetched a solution, because it is well known that 
mythical stories are built upon unusual and surprising 
events which appeal strongly to imagination and for which 
no scientific explanation has yet been offered ; and so sim- 
ple a fact as a man walking by the sea is utterly inadequate 
to set a wonderful story floating, as the circumstance is so 
common that no one would think twice about it seeing that 
there is no mystery connected with it requiring any ex- 
planation whatever. 

Far easier is it to credit the romantic theory of Renan 
than the skeptical theory of Strauss, though Renan' s por- 
trait of Jesus is at times so weak as to fall far below the 
necessary heroic standard. That Jesus stands at least for 
a Master, and was so regarded at the beginning of the 
Christian era is a fact beyond reasonable dispute, despite 
the fact that Dupuis, Gerald Massey, and many other dis- 
tinguished authors, in their determined endeavors to prove 
Christianity identical with a far older Solar Cultus, have 
sought to disprove utterly all historical foundation for the 
gospels. The three gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark 
and Luke, commonly styled Synoptic, undoubtedly record 
historic incidents, so does the mystical Fourth Gospel, 



Ideas of the Soul and of Spirit-Communion 227 

though in less pronounced degree ; for, unlike its prede- 
cessors in the Canon, it commences with a Gnostic disser- 
tation concerning the Logos which Theosophists declare 
"ensouls " the universe. 

In John 14 we have a striking illustration of the con- 
tinuity of earlier teachings, when the Master says to his 
disciples " In my Father's house are many mansions 
(abiding places), if it were not so I would have told you." 
Such language seems perfectly to confirm an already ac- 
cepted truth but does not serve to enunciate a new doc- 
trine. " Whither I go ye know and the way ye know " 
may also be fairly taken as another proof of the complete 
agreement which subsisted between the primitive Christian 
gnostic teaching and the more ancient teachings with 
which primitive Christianity was in complete accord, and 
of which its distinctive doctrine was a continuation. 

Many strange allusions to "baptism for the dead" and 
other ancient rites, found in the epistles of Paul, show to 
every student that early Christian practices were in many 
respects identical with pre-Christian customs which had 
been long established and which were intended to confer 
advantages alike upon those yet on earth and their departed 
brethren. In the Apostle's Creed, Jesus is said to have 
" descended into hell," which is often translated Hades, — 
the general abode of departed spirits. Here is an unmis- 
takable evidence that when that early creed was compiled 
no such ideas as a hell of endless torment had entered the 
Christian mind, for no Saviour would minister among the 
irrevocably lost. 

The early Christian assemblies were meetings of devout 
and fraternal persons who exercised their various spiritual 
gifts one by one in open conference, and it was only after 



228 Universal Spiritualism 

some of these meetings had become disorderly and sober 
discipline had been relaxed, that it was necessary for Paul, 
as overseer of many federated congregations, to rebuke 
disorderly practices and insist that all things be conducted 
" decently and in order." " The spirits of the prophets are 
subject to the prophets" is a clear reference to the orderly 
exercise of spiritual gifts in an assembly, and surely not 
even one who seeks, in these days, to attribute all spirit- 
communion to "evil" influences will be found ready to 
concede that the faithful, self-denying early Christians who 
jeopardized their earthly all by fidelity to their convictions 
and stood ready to shed their blood, if need arose, for the 
Christian cause, were possessed with devils. Only the 
rational view of spirit-communion, which we are taking, 
explains phenomena recorded in the New Testament, and 
if it come to comparison between ancient and modern 
marvels and mysteries little difference can be discerned be- 
tween the two. Wherever we turn for confirmation we find 
that orderly and disorderly conditions contemporaneously 
prevail, and it ever has been and still is intensely neces- 
sary that we should uphold the former and not let the lat- 
ter go unreproved. 

To understand at all clearly the attitude of the earliest 
Christian church towards spirit- communion we must never 
allow ourselves to forget that the first impetus given to the 
Christian movement was its claim to have demonstrated 
human immortality in an age and in countries where faith 
therein had well nigh expired or where doubt was gaining 
so great a foothold that the path to the hereafter was so 
deeply veiled in shadow as to make the hour of dissolu- 
tion one of impenetrable gloom. Jesus brought life and 
immortality "to light" — such was the early Christian 



Ideas of the Soul and of Spirit-Communion 229 

claim, and this he could not have done unless he had will- 
ingly surrendered himself to crucifixion when his opponents 
desired to crucify him. " Have no fear of those who can 
kill the body, for that is all that they can do " is a text 
which announces spiritual, not fleshly, immortality in terms 
of unmistakable lucidity. It was not a physical but a 
spiritual body which arose and appeared to many and ulti- 
mately ceased to manifest on earth except in such rare in- 
stances as that of the appearance to Saul of Tarsus at the 
time of his conversion. 

It is absurd to argue that Jesus did not sanction spiritual 
communion because he told Thomas that it was more 
blessed to be endowed with spiritual perception than to be 
dependent upon tangible external demonstrations, for such 
it ever must be. 

The men and women of nineteen centuries ago who 
were led to embrace Christianity in its pristine period 
were human beings like ourselves, with deep affections 
and yearning aspirations such as we are conscious of. 
Neither in the established Judaism or Paganism of their 
day did they find the evidences or the consolation which 
they sought, any more than people find either to-day in a 
hard institutionalized ecclesiasticism or in a scientific 
agnosticism which is always its close companion, though 
seemingly its direct antagonist. 

No amount of bewildering speculation can ever satisfy the 
cravings of human love, for in hours of bereavement people 
are not seeking to know whether by some vaguely defined 
alchemistic process they can eventually " cheat the under- 
taker," they are striving to receive proof that their beloved 
friends who have departed are still alive and loving and 
capable of communing with them still. To the early 



230 Universal Spiritualism 

Christians, who were in constant peril of losing their 
earthly all, all material things (fleshly bodies included) ap- 
peared of very little value. They were in constant danger 
of underrating rather than of overvaluing the material world 
and all that it contains. While we cannot find ourselves 
entirely in, accord with all primitive Christian views and 
practices, any more than we can sympathize entirely with 
the beliefs and ways of modern Spiritualists, we do affirm 
that the early Christian religion was founded upon demon- 
strated individual immortality, and that it taught a pro- 
gressive continuous life for every human being after drop- 
ping the external organism. Mourning for the departed 
received no sanction in the early Christian church ; white 
robes, not black, were worn on occasions of transition, and 
at the service of holy communion it was generally believed 
not only that commemoration of the departed should be 
made and prayers for their continued progress offered, but 
also that they were often truly present with their fellow 
communicants and still took part in the blessings of the 
united spiritual feast. 

Slowly, but surely, is modern Christendom returning to 
the ancient esoteric faith; one by one clergymen, now 
branded as heretics by their materialistic and ritualistic 
confreres, are coming to the front with outspoken declara- 
tions which strike the less spiritually-minded but pro- 
fessedly " orthodox " among their brethren with indigna- 
tion and alarm ; but the old fallacy of a fleshly resurrec- 
tion has to die and it is surely dying, and not slowly, that 
in its place may rise a spiritual conception of immortality 
in which science and religion can unite their wedded 
hands. The following utterance from a distinguished 
English clergyman is amply sufficient to show the drift 



Ideas of the Soul and of Spirit-Communion 231 

of modern religious thought, back to primitive spiritual 
conceptions and forward to new and nobler definitions of 
life and its endless continuity. We offer no comment, we 
agree so perfectly with the quoted words that we prefer to 
leave them without addition of our own to make their 
salutary influence felt upon every attentive reader's mind. 
The author of the following quotation is the Rev. Forbes 
Phillips, vicar of Gorleston, who has dramatized Guy 
Thome's popular book, " When it was Dark." 

"For my own part I declare plainly as a high church 
clergyman, who indeed wears vestments and lights candles 
on the altar, that I do not consider it an article of Christian 
faith that his body did rise from the tomb. On the con- 
trary, I believe it did not. I believe if we were to make 
careful exploration in Palestine to-day we might actually 
come across the sacred tomb and discover within it the 
precious body of our Lord ; or, at all events, dim remains 
of it as it was hidden away by Joseph of Arimathea. 

" Christ rose in spirit. It was the spirit that appeared 
to the disciples so constantly after the crucifixion. It 
was a spirit that ascended into heaven, and it is a glorious 
spirit that appears and has appeared during the long cen- 
turies to thousands of wearied Christians here on earth." 



CHAPTER XVI 

PSYCHICAL RESEARCH IN MODERN EUROPE 

Under the name of psychical research the phenomena 
of Spiritualism are being carefully and cautiously investi- 
gated in Great Britain, and also, to a very great extent, in 
France, so much so, indeed, that in Paris it is almost im- 
possible to avoid meeting talented and influential people 
who are actively engaged in this important and alluring 
study. When the writer, in 1895, was the honored guest 
of Marie, Countess of Caithness, Duchesse of Pomar, — 
known all over the literary world as a learned and enthusi- 
astic exponent of Spiritualism and Theosophy, — at the 
magnificent palace in Ave Wagram, named Holyrood in 
honor of Marie Stuart, Queen of Scots, whom the duchess 
believed to be her spiritual guardian, all sorts of interest- 
ing people gathered in the splendid salon to discuss all 
conceivable aspects of psychic science. It was then that 
many of the movements which have now grown to large 
proportions were in a comparatively incipient stage, though 
even then Spiritism asset forth by "Allan Kardec " was 
a well established cult, possessing an extensive literature 
and represented by many gifted men and women of high 
social standing and far more than average intelligence. 
Three of Allan Kardec's works — "The Mediums' Book," 
"The Spirits' Book," and "Heaven and Hell "—had 
long been translated into excellent English by the famous 
Anna Blackwell, and still another — " Genesis "—trans- 
lated by the present writer, had appeared in America. 

23 2 



Psychical Research in Modern Europe 233 

These four books constitute the leading text-books of 
European Spiritists, who nearly all accept the doctrine of 
reincarnation as well as spirit-communion. The work of 
the Leymaries has long been widely and favorably known, 
and at the headquarters of the organization of which P. G. 
Leymarie (now succeeded by his son) was long the head, 
every phase of mysterious phenomena is persistently and 
critically investigated. 

The fine premises known as 42 Rue Saint Jacques, are 
the centre of spiritistic operations participated in by many 
of the most famous scientists in Europe, for in France and 
Italy scientific men of recognized high standing are fore- 
most in the ranks of psychical investigation. The works 
of Flamarion, the world-renowned astronomer, have done 
very much to popularize enquiry into everything " occult " ■ 
his splendid collection of well authenticated facts, pub- 
lished as "LTnconnu" (an English edition of which 
bears the title "The Unknown") has served to open the 
eyes of very many who might never have been led to inves- 
tigate had it not been for the prestige given to the enquiry 
by so great a scientist. 

Victorien Sardou, the famous playwright, for a great 
many years has been a prominent advocate of Spiritualism, 
and it is well known that Victor Hugo and many others 
among French " immortals " have vouched for the reality 
of spirit-communion. 

The Martinists and various other mystic orders have in- 
fluential membership in Paris which, despite its frivolity on 
the surface, has a deep undercurrent of genuine spirituality, 
which no skepticism or indifference has ever been able ef- 
fectually to quell. 

We hear of " Satanism," which is Black Art and alto- 



234 Universal Spiritualism 

gether opposed to true Spiritualism, Occultism and Theoso- 
phy, but that is but a sad perversion of a mighty and 
glorious force which, when rightly understood and wisely 
handled is capable of contributing enormously to human 
welfare. Despite the constantly reiterated assertion that 
France is atheistic in its modern tendency, nothing can be 
further from the truth so far as its most enlightened citizens 
are concerned. The Republic has indeed exalted State 
above Church, but, in so doing, though ^thas"completely 
secularized education, it has cleared the way for a new and 
perfectly unfettered investigation of the secret forces of 
Nature which can now be fearlessly conducted, without fear 
of interruption, unless deeds are performed so much at 
variance with common rights and liberties that the arm of 
civil law must be invoked, in which case the wrong-doing 
i of clairvoyants, palmists, astrologers and others must be 
justly dealt with precisely as similar misdemeanors com- 
mitted by other classes of society. Clairvoyants in France 
are numerous and often very reliable, though too many 
seers and seeresses are unduly given to enlarging upon the 
dark side of whatever they psychically discern. France is 
a curiously impressionable country; its very atmosphere 
seems favorable to psychical development, and the ready 
impressionability of its inhabitants makes it far less diffi- 
cult for spiritual views of life to gain a footing there than 
in lands where the temperament and habits of the people 
incline to the solid rather than to the volatile. 

The influence exerted by the Duchesse de Pomar was ex- 
ceedingly great, as she combined with ample means and 
high station a superb intellectual equipment for literary en- 
terprises in which she magnificently excelled. For many 
years the fine monthly magazine she edited E Aurore 



Psychical Research in Modern Europe 235 

was the paper par excellence in which might always be 
found the latest and most brilliant utterances of the greatest 
thinkers in Europe who undertook to treat on psychic 
themes. When that truly noble lady passed to spirit-life 
in the autumn of 1895, no one was found to exactly fill the 
place the good duchess had left vacant \ but, though such 
was literally the sad fact a perfect host of honorable and 
capable men and women have arisen on all sides to sustain 
and further develop interest in all that pertains to the 
psychic side of human nature. That very popular Ameri- 
can periodical, Everybody' s Magazine, published a 
finely illustrated article (March, 1906) by Vance Thomp- 
son, entitled "The Invisible World," in which the public 
has been treated to an insight into spiritualistic and occult 
doings which must have proved a great eye-opener to those 
belated people who do not know that this scientific 
twentieth century is most keenly alive to the evidences of 
life immortal and that European as well as American and 
Australian capitals are centres of investigation, leading 
rapidly to results which are completely demolishing 
materialism and putting to rout at the same instant per- 
verted religious dogmatism. A photograph of Spiritualist 
Headquarters in London shows a fine building in Hanover 
Square, a most fashionable West End district, the seat of 
the famous St. George's Church, famed as the historic 
fane in which countless aristocratic marriages have been 
celebrated. The next illustration shows us the interior of 
the great hall in Rue d' Athenes, Paris, where a highly 
distinguished company of learned men and women are 
seen seated at a conference of the Society for psychical 
Research, of which Professor Charles Richet is president. 
This body has had in its presidential chair at different 



236 Universal Spiritualism 

times Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver Lodge, and others 
among the most distinguished scientists of the present age. 
Such men are neither charlatans nor the dupes of tricksters, 
and it is they, and others like them, who are now conduct- 
ing intricate and elaborate investigations which are bearing 
abundant fruit, though the measures employed seem often 
unnecessarily slow and laborious to convinced spiritualists, 
for whom these tedious proceedings appear not to be neces- 
sary ; but such should never lose sight of the important fact 
that the scientific world is not made up of lucides or sensi- 
tives, and the outside non-sensitive public is demanding a 
record of scientifically conducted experiments prior to 
accepting as proven the stupendous, though intrinsically 
simple, facts for which these learned savants are prepared 
to vouch. 

Another photograph shows Flamarion lecturing on some 
phase of Spiritualism in which he has been deeply and 
critically interested from his youth. Celebrities and their 
endorsement mean much to many minds, and rightly so in 
some senses, for men who are devoting their lives indus- 
triously to the pursuit of any branch of science, provided 
their researches are being honorably conducted, are justly 
entitled to our attention and esteem. It takes the trained 
observer and experimentalist to carefully weigh all minor 
points in evidence, and if these are neglected, testimony 
otherwise valuable often remains decidedly inconclusive. 

Major Darget's portrait is also presented as one interested 
in matters occult, and he as discoverer of the " N Ray " 
has long been one of the brilliant and highly-honored 
lights in French scientific circles. 

A comparatively new word is now in constant use — 
metapsychical, which undoubtedly means much more than 



Psychical Research in Modern Europe 237 

the old metaphysical and it has a congenial companion in 
supernormal, which has largely driven from the vocabulary 
of culture the ancient supernatural. Terms are valuable 
to the extent that they clearly express ideas, but no further, 
and if the new word metapsychical proves a successful 
candidate for scientilic honors, scientific men who use it 
must be prepared to define exactly what they mean by 
psychical, and then go on to define meta, which properly 
means beyond. That extremely foolish phrase ''uncon- 
scious mind," which we regret to discover is holding high 
carnival in reputable literature, conveys no intelligible idea 
to the average thoughtful reader. Super and sub, mean- 
ing respectively higher and lower, may be allowed to stand 
as expressive prefixes, but un is a negative term, and there- 
fore definable only as an expression of negation. There is 
no unconscious mind, though the mind may be expressed 
on various planes in diverse manners. 

The savants of Europe who are busy wrestling with 
occult problems, are certainly on their way to many 
valuable discoveries, but many of their present positions 
are purely tentative, and as they honestly and fearlessly 
admit, they are not afraid to propose hypotheses tem- 
porarily and then abandon one hypothesis in favor of an- 
other when further knowledge compels the taking of some 
more advanced position. "Everything is possible; 
nothing is proved." Such is the introductory statement 
likely to be made by the scientific researcher who, stand- 
ing on the threshold of a vast unknown, refuses to pro- 
nounce anything unknowable. In like manner are we 
dropping from our vocabulary, when we seek to be rigidly 
scientific in our choice of terms, such familiar, but often 
misleading, words as invisible, inaudible, incurable, in- 



238 Universal Spiritualism 

corrigible, and many more of the same family. As substi- 
tutes for the terms we are discarding we are bringing rightly 
into prominent employ such reasonable and useful words 
as unseen, unheard, uncorrected, and many more of like 
import which do not close the door upon any sort of in- 
vestigation, but only describe an immediate and temporary 
agnostic attitude, which may at any moment yield to a 
gnostic position as a result of successful new discovery. 

Much stress is laid in many quarters upon the dangers to 
ill-balanced minds resulting from too close attention given to 
things mysterious ; but, though caution is doubtless needed, 
and there have been some sad catastrophes resulting appar- 
ently from unwise dabbling in the "occult," it must not be 
forgotten that scientific research in general, as well as the 
pursuit of further application of the principles of mechanics, 
has never been unattended with some degree of danger as 
well as difficulty. It is therefore only puerile to cry out 
against investigation because danger and difficulty, to some 
extent, surround the gate of the temple of higher knowl- 
edge. Where would have been the great railways, 
canals, electric cables, and a thousand other valuable ap- 
pliances in the modern world if inventors and explorers 
had been scared from their work by the parrot-cry of 
those whom Longfellow well described in his poetic gem 
"Excelsior," but to whose croakings and warnings the 
intrepid Alpine climber would pay no heed ? Timid peo- 
ple whose nerves are weak and whose hearts are in a 
pathological condition must move very cautiously in all 
directions ; but the stronger and healthier members of the 
human race will never content themselves with follow- 
ing directions adapted only to the needs of the weakest 
specimens. But though there are dangers as well as 



Psychical Research in Modern Europe 239 

difficulties along the road of psychical investigation, the 
uncanny aspects of the question are greatly exaggerated, 
and in almost all cases where insanity and crime have been 
attributed to psychic investigation or to the development 
and exercise of " mediumship," it has been found after 
more close examination that quite other causes than those 
alleged by the enemies of Spiritualism had been manifestly 
working to produce disastrous ends. 

Religious revivals and all forms of emotional excitement 
are very dangerous for some people, and much as we may 
wish to reform Spiritualistic methods, as we certainly de- 
sire also to reform religious propaganda, we cannot do 
either by holding up to unreasonable execration an entire 
system because it manifests certain grave faults which 
greatly need correction. Ella Wheeler Wilcox gave ex- 
cellent advice to multitudes through the medium of the 
Hearst newspapers when she counseled astrologers, 
palmists, clairvoyants and all to whom the public go to 
"get their fortunes told," to exercise great wisdom in 
plying their vocation, for her good sense and wide experi- 
ence in the world had fully assured her that people will 
enquire into the mysterious, precisely as they will visit 
doctors, lawyers, and many other classes of people when 
they are in doubt or trouble. We certainly cannot prevent 
the exercise of psychic gifts or the investigation of aught 
that is "occult" in private, even though the law should 
put down its public practice, we are only reasonable, there- 
fore, in so far as we determine to accept an existing situa- 
tion and seek to make the best of it in the truly practical 
way of setting to work to improve and refine what cannot 
be abolished. 

The darker aspects of Parisian Occultism have no con- 



240 Universal Spiritualism 

nection whatever with scientific research or with Spiritual- 
ism, and though they are getting a good deal of advertis- 
ing they exercise only a very slight influence in any other 
than the most morally depraved circles of society. Spirit 
pictures, drawn automatically through the hand of the 
distinguished etcher Ferdinand Demoulins, have excited 
much attention among Parisians, and spirit photographs 
vouched for by the famous Col. de Rochas are also objects 
of considerable interest. 

All these things are very wonderful, and the attention 
they excite is more than transitory, but even these marvels 
pale in genuine importance, in the esteem of many, in the 
presence of the wonderful works of healing which are 
constantly attested by competent witnesses, who know of 
the immense benefit derived by many sufferers through the 
agency of psychic treatment or psycho-therapy, often 
clumsily designated hypnotism, which is a misleading term 
unless applied exclusively to methods which induce sleep 
or are in some way connected with it, as hypnosis from the 
Greek hypnos must always properly mean a state of 
somnolence, and very many cases of psychic cure have 
nothing whatever to do in any sense of the word with any 
somnambulic condition. 

Professor Durville, one of the leaders of the Magnetic 
School (L'Ecole Magnetique, — 25 Rue Saint Merri) has 
recently achieved much prominence, and there are many 
others in Paris to whom the suffering public is greatly 
indebted for relief from distressing maladies. If it be as- 
serted that nervous cases and diseases of the imagination are 
almost the only types of malady which are successfully 
treated by psychic methods, then be it so, if such shall 
prove the case, but even did we make so exaggerated an 



Psychical Research in Modern Europe 241 

admission we should still be compelled to gratefully ac- 
knowledge that a beneficent agency is at work which is 
grappling successfully with many of the obscurest and 
most distressing ailments which baffle at every turn the 
skill of the most eminent physicians. 

Telepathy is pronounced "an acquired certainty" by 
those who have studiously proved it, and instead of Spir- 
itualists displaying wisdom by fighting shy of it as though 
it were an offset to spirit-communion, it is found to be ex- 
actly the reverse as further researches in psychology are 
constantly demonstrating with ever-brightening conclusive- 
ness that the telepathic faculty survives physical dissolu- 
tion, and can be and often is employed by our discarnate 
as well as by our incarnate friends, when seeking to com- 
municate. Vance Thompson tells us that while accepted 
Science does not go quite so far as Occultism, it certainly 
sets forth the following propositions : 

1 st. There exist in Nature certain unknown forces 
capable of acting on matter. 

2d. We possess other means of knowledge than those 
of reason or the senses. 

This second statement applies to the subjective phe- 
nomena of "metaphysics," which includes telepathy, 
second sight, clairvoyance, and all else that is closely 
allied with such a broad general classification. 

While speaking of French institutions, we must not for- 
get to mention the temple of the Martinists (the cult 
founded by Claude de Saint-Martin) in the Latin Quar- 
ter (13 Rue Sequier), of which Dr. Encasse, generally 
known as " Papus " is the leader. This society has spread 
the world over, and has recently established itself quite 
successfully in America under the leadership of Mrs. 






242 Universal Spiritualism 

Margaret Peake, whose home is at Sandusky, Ohio. As 
author of "Born of Flame," " Zenia the Vestal," and 
other thrilling occult stories, this gifted woman is quite a 
literary celebrity, and in Boston, a city she often visits 
and where she is highly esteemed, with the cooperation of 
Dr. R J. Miller, a prominent teacher and practitioner of 
mental and spiritual therapeutics, a Martinist lodge has 
been established ; the opening sessions of which were held 
in the office of Dr. Miller in the Oxford Hotel, Hunting- 
ton Avenue, late in 1905. Sardou has done much to 
popularize Spiritualism by his famous plays, and we see 
no cause for reasonable doubt that ere long the stage will 
prove one of the most efficient aids to helping forward a 
knowledge of psychic forces as the morality and miracle 
plays in the time of Queen Elizabeth were influential in 
spreading the religious and ethical opinions of that period, 
. and it cannot be successfully denied that at the present 
time strong plays which introduce a psychic element are 
very popular. 

In Italy all phases of psychic phenomena are undergoing 
close examination. The eminent Lombroso and other 
world-renowned scientific celebrities take prominent part 
in psychical investigation, and very persistent as well as 
rigidly analytical investigators do they prove to be. 

Fanatical churchmen may howl " devil," and material- 
ists may scoff at every attempt to unseat their favorite 
fallacies, but Spiritualism has come to stay, and though in 
many quarters it has been unhappily saddled with excres- 
cences which need removing (and are even now being re- 
moved) it is beyond question that a comprehensive spirit- 
ual philosophy is the coming philosophy, uniting, as it 
does, science with religion, and restoring knowledge of a 



Psychical Research in Modern Europe 243 

spiritual universe coupled with acceptance of all that ex- 
perimental science can reveal. Europe is undergoing a 
spiritual renaissance, and France is heading the advancing 
hosts which are patiently and industriously marching for- 
ward to ever-increasing victory. 



CHAPTER XVII 

SLEEP AS AN EDUCATOR— ITS SPIRITUAL 
PURPOSE AND VALUE 

The most thoroughly universal means extant for ac- 
complishing communion with the unseen universe is un- 
doubtedly through sleep, which though commonly regarded 
as only a physiological necessity, providing opportunity for 
recuperation through periodic rest for brain and muscles, 
is in reality a most blessed means for enabling all of us to 
enjoy fellowship, one with another, regardless of distance 
or any other material barrier. 

The accepted "Masonic" division of time into three 
periods of eight hours each, in every twenty-four, is cer- 
tainly wise in the average, for it is found by experience 
that excellent health and mental vigor can generally be 
maintained if we devote eight hours every day to our reg- 
ular business occupation, eight hours to eating, dressing, 
bathing and all varieties of recreation including active 
outdoor exercise, and eight hours to sleep. 

Sixteen hours by this arrangement are well accounted 
for as spent in action, and it is easily possible for every one 
to see how during those two thirds of time, we are receiv- 
ing instruction or are at least capable of receiving it ; but 
the remaining third, the eight hours spent in sleep, is 
looked upon by many people as practically wasted so far 
as education is concerned, consequently many people of 
active temperament and ambitious nature, grudge the time 
they devote to sleep, and seek constantly to shorten it, 

244 



Sleep As An Educator 245 

with what disastrous results we are all familiar, but nothing 
can well be more self-evident than that lack of sleep is a 
highroad to insanity. 

This pitiable contempt for " Nature's sweet restorer, 
balmy sleep " is a product of feverish unrest occasioned by 
an ultra-physical idea of life, into which no spiritual ele- 
ment is allowed to enter as an appreciable benefit. We 
are not exercising any of our physical senses while we are 
sleeping, and with those who bind themselves to the sad 
belief that knowledge can be obtained only while we are 
wide awake and actively exercising our material senses, 
there must be a sense of repulsion felt to any phenomenon 
which takes us away from the active outward life in which 
we are so greatly interested that we desire to devote to it 
our every energy. 

Were false beliefs concerning the spiritual and intel- 
lectual uses of sleep confined to confessed Materialists, 
there would be no occasion for wonder, but the reputed 
religious, Bible- reading world is no less astray than any 
Secularist community in this respect, and it certainly does 
seem curious that any who credit Bible doctrines should 
disparage sleep or doubt that dreams are often both sig- 
nificant and prophetic. 

Two of the most remarkable Bible characters bear the 
honored name of Joseph, one in the Old Testament, the 
other in the New Testament, and though they are intro- 
duced to us as having lived many centuries apart, they 
were equally noteworthy for the wonderful nature of their 
dreams,, and for their marvellous faculty of interpretation. 

Joseph who wears the coat of many colors or " long- 
sleeved " coat as the Polychrome Bible expresses it, to dis- 
tinguish him from his brothers who were less enlightened 



246 Universal Spiritualism 

than he, was according to Genesis, the only man who in 
time of scarcity of crops had possessed sufficient insight to 
so harvest the grain when it grew plenteously, that there 
was abundance in store to prevent famine in time of dearth. 

Pharaoh, the native king of Egypt, could dream as all 
men can dream, but he could not tell the significance of 
what he dreamed, consequently his dreams though highly 
significant in themselves, would have proved useless to 
him, Jiad it not been for Joseph's interpretations. 

Dreams are usually couched in symbols or allegory. 
Seven years of plenty are represented by seven full ears 
of corn, and seven well-fed cattle, while seven years of 
scarcity are represented by seven wasted ears of corn and 
seven starving cattle. 

To see fourteen years ahead seems truly marvelous, but 
it is not altogether unusual, for even in recent times and 
before great interest had been reawakened in psychic 
problems, it has often happened that sensitive people have 
clearly seen events a long while before they actually oc- 
curred. It is not, then, with simple dreaming, but only 
with interpreting of dreams that highly gifted seers are 
specially concerned. 

There is always some degree of difficulty associated with 
any prediction of the future, because it may reasonably be 
asked, how can any seer, no matter how phenomenally 
gifted, possibly see something which has not occurred ? 

Ingenious explanations of reading the past may readily 
occur to us, and it seems quite feasible that Nature keeps 
a book of remembrance in which all events are faithfully 
recorded, and to that scroll of record, seers and seeresses 
enjoy particularly easy access. 

"The future lies hidden in the womb of the past." 



Sleep As An Educator 247 

This is an occult saying worthy of deep consideration. 
Causes have been already set in motion which are even 
now bringing forth results which must proceed forth in 
orderly, inevitable sequence. Admitting this proposition, 
it is by no means impossible to formulate an intelligent 
working hypothesis to account for the frequent fact that 
coming events are constantly being foretold. 

Rash guesses and arbitrary statements based on the pe- 
culiar views which some people entertain concerning the 
most highly mystical portions of the Bible, can never be 
reasonably included in the catalogue of prophecies, because 
the foolish and decidedly unfulfilled predictions based 
upon such arbitrary dogmatism display no spiritual insight 
and such predictions are of no practical value. 

All truly prophetic sight has a use and its use is sus- 
ceptible of demonstration as in the case of the Josephs of 
both Testaments. The New Testament Joseph is said 
to have seen an " angel of the Lord " during his sleep, and 
whilst he was dreaming he received from that celestial 
messenger information of great importance upon which he 
could and did successfully act. When we are soundly 
sleeping, our minds disengaged from all ordinary business 
activities, we may hold conscious converse with spiritual 
beings whom, at other times, we do not hear or see. 

The angels who appear unto us at certain times are not 
necessarily nearer to us at those times than on other occa- 
sions, but our receptive state enables us to become aware 
of their presence. 

The phrase "unconscious mind" is very nearly unin- 
telligible, though Dr. Schofield and other learned and able 
men employ it, but while we cannot reasonably speak of 
mind as unconscious, we can quite fairly claim that mind 



248 Universal Spiritualism 

can function on various planes of consciousness, so much 
so that when we are wide awake on one plane, we are 
sound asleep on another. 

The two states — waking and sleeping, are so distinct 
that they are rarely unified, thus, in one sense we are un- 
conscious of what is going on, on one plane of action, 
when we are completely engrossed with what is occurring 
on another. Perfectly sound refreshing sleep may be 
quite unconnected with ordinary dreaming, yet when we 
wake we find ourselves wiser as well as refreshed in conse- 
quence of our profound repose. 

Memory soon grows weak and fitful if sleep is broken, 
and there can be no worse habit than to get in the way of 
sleeping as people say "with one eye open." Both eyes 
ought to be completely closed and the mind allowed to 
m betake itself to other regions of contemplation than those 
in which it moves during the hours of the business day. 

Joseph the carpenter, attending to his daily work, might 
not have been known as a seer in Nazareth ; had any visitors 
met him while he was engaged in his accustomed manual 
task they would have seen only an industrious workman 
absorbed in his employment, but after business hours when 
the shop was closed and Joseph had retired for the night, 
he was no longer carpenter but prophet. A valuable book, 
" The Mystery of Sleep," by Dr. John Bigelow (Harper & 
Bros., New York and London) is prefaced with the follow- 
ing quotation from Psalm 119, "I have remembered thy 
name, O Lord, in the night, and have observed thy law," 
and this passage from Iamblichus, " The night-time of the 
body is the daytime of the soul." 

Dr. Bigelow quotes considerably from Swedenborg with 
whose philosophy he is greatly in accord, and we may well 



Sleep As An Educator 249 

remember that the gifted seer and sage of Sweden de- 
clared that the spiritual world is the realm of causation, 
the material state being only a region of effects, and he 
distinctly taught that while we are asleep bodily we can be 
awake spiritually. 

Dr. Bigelow insists that "It is not consistent with any 
rational notion of a Divine Providence that we should pass 
one third of our lives under conditions in which we could 
experience no spiritual growth or development, as would be 
the inevitable result of absolute rest." Then he continues, 
"Sleep does not represent or imply rest in the sense of 
inactivity or idleness, psychical or physical" but "the 
suspension of our consciousness during sleep simply in- 
terrupts our relations temporarily with the phenomenal 
world and shelters us from its distractions and fascinations, 
without which spiritual growth and development — the 
divine purpose of our creation — would be impossible." 

The foregoing sentences are worthy of deep perusal and 
we particularly commend them to all those professedly re- 
ligious persons who accept historically all Bible narratives 
concerning illumination during sleep, but reject the testi- 
mony of present-day seers to the same phenomena. 

Dr. Bigelow is consistent with his religious faith and at 
the same time eminently scientific, when he tells us that 
" neither the physical nor psychical changes which we are 
conscious of having undergone during the hours devoted 
to sleep can be realized or accounted for if the activity of 
those faculties, respectively, were suspended " and he 
further states that "the involuntary subjugation of the 
senses periodically to sleep is one of the vital processes of 
spiritual regeneration, without which such regeneration 
would be impossible, as is evidenced by the fact that the 



250 Universal Spiritualism 

most important events in the history of our race were in- 
itiated during sleep." 

The latter is a bold statement but we believe it to be 
correct, and were we to devote more study than we do to 
the origin of great movements which have led to general 
enlightenment, and also to the testimonies of really influen- 
tial men and women concerning their own sleep and 
what it has brought to them, we should revise our judg- 
ment concerning the use of this great initiator into spirit- 
ual mysteries. 

One of Dr. Bigelow's strongest statements is irrefutable, 
for no one can deny that "all virtues favor sleep, and all 
vices discourage it." The further declaration that " the 
difference between sleep and death may be more a differ- 
ence in duration than condition " receives much confirma- 
tion, alike from seers of ancient and of modern time, though 
it is often strictly denied by people who fail to discern 
that man is here and now a spiritual entity, and that 
deprivation of the material body implies no more than 
absence of a material instrument. 

Dreams are certainly only experiences which we en- 
counter while passing from one state of consciousness to 
another. That is why it is that, when we wake hastily, 
as when aroused by an alarm, we rarely remember any 
of our dreams distinctly, but when we awaken gradually 
we often remember distinctly every detail. 

In seeking to cultivate what George du Maurier in 
"Peter Ibbettson" calls " Dreaming True" we must accus- 
tom ourselves to passing into the sleeping state contemplat- 
ing serenely and assuredly some definite object with which 
we desire to be related during sleep, or with some friend 
from whom we should be glad to receive some tidings. 



Sleep As An Educator 251 

There are many friends who though separated physic 
ally are very near together spiritually, and though oc- 
casionally they receive some inkling of psychic association, 
their general feeling is that material circumstances are 
holding them apart. A very extreme case is that of the 
two leading characters in Du Maurier's fascinating story 
which was founded on genuine autobiography. It is not 
very often that a man like " Peter Ibbettson " is con- 
demned to a life sentence of imprisonment, or that a 
woman like " The Duchess of Towers " remains so many 
years completely faithful (even in thought) to a childhood's 
companion under such exceptionally trying circumstances, 
but dramatic high lights are necessary to duly enforce 
the doctrine which Du Maurier has elucidated. 

For well on to thirty years this man and woman held 
nightly communion in their charming fairy palace which 
fell into ruins when the good woman passed to spirit 
life ; but though in the post-mortem state she could no 
longer commune with her lonely, sorrow stricken friend, 
as in days of yore, it was not long before means of com- 
munion were established, and spirit-communion in the 
fullest sense of the term became in their careers a dem- 
onstrated reality. 

The revised version of the Psalms gives a much clearer 
idea of the original than does the old translation, which 
though not necessarily inaccurate is often obscure and 
unsatisfactory. " He giveth his beloved sleep " is a beau- 
tiful motto, but Psalm 127, from which it is taken, really 
says a great deal more, for it declares " he giveth unto 
his beloved in their sleep," distinctly teaching education 
during slumber. 

It is often admitted that remarkable enlightenment may 



252 Universal Spiritualism 

come during periods of ecstasy or trance, but true ec- 
stasia or enhancement differs scarcely at all from ordinary 
profound repose, except, as in the case of Swedenborg 
and a few other exceptionally phenomenal seers, when the 
two states of consciousness — waking and sleeping — were en- 
joyed simultaneously. 

Nothing can be more significant to the gospel student 
than the case related of Jesus soundly sleeping through 
a storm upon one of the Galilean lakes, while his dis- 
ciples who were in the boat with him were unable to 
sleep because they were in dread of shipwreck. 

That most unwholesome teaching, which some hysterical 
people have taken up with, to the effect that as we grow 
more spiritual we shall do without sleep, is uncanny and 
untruthful in the extreme, and such doctrine is always 
associated with a morbid fear of losing or wasting time, 
^s though strenuous external activity were a perpetual ne- 
cessity — which it decidedly is not. 

People who grudge time for rest never retain their waking 
powers to a ripe age, and the work they accomplish be- 
trays marks of feverish haste or painful lassitude. The 
more spiritually-minded we become the more tranquil are 
our slumbers, and no one who is a keen observer need 
look far afield to trace the origin of that pleasing and 
popular expression " they are sleeping the sleep of the 
just." 

Wherever there is spiritual destitution there is great 
need of physical vigilance, therefore, sleep is dreaded as 
an enemy which puts us off our guard, but so soon as we 
have grown into a sweet consciousness of spiritual repose 
our bodies enjoy that calm natural slumber which is always 
the friend of health and the destroyer of insanity. 



Sleep As An Educator 253 

To employ artificial aids, such as poisonous drugs, to in- 
duce sleep is decidedly erroneous, and the visions which are 
conjured up during the artificial sleep induced by opium, 
hasheesh or any other powerful and deadening narcotic are 
usually unreliable. 

Hypnotic treatment which induces artificial somnambu- 
lism is a subject of much criticism, and there is but one 
way to settle its claims intelligently, and that is by dis- 
criminating clearly between statements made by professed 
advocates and also by defamers of all hypnotic methods. 
The remarkable work accomplished by Dr. John Qnacken- 
bos of New York, has brought the word hypnotism into 
great dispute, largely on account of calling a process 
hypnotic (sleep-inducing) in cases where the intention and 
result were entirely in the direction of arousing a patient 
out of a protracted sleep which, had it continued longer, 
would have resulted in physical dissolution. 

Dr. Quackenbos was largely reported (during February, 
1906), as having restored to health by suggestive treatment 
a young woman who was actually dying, and was sum- 
moned back to earthly existence by the doctor's imperative 
call, to which she responded. This, though wrongly ad- 
vertised in many papers as a case of successful hypnotism 
was exactly the reverse, and called forth the following ex- 
planatory comment from Miss S. C. Clark, a prominent 
practitioner of spiritual healing, which, she insists, is some- 
thing quite distinct from hypnotism, and so it is, for while 
in some cases spiritual treatment induces needed sleep it 
never forces it, and the unpleasant feature of hypnotism has 
always been the idea of more or less mental coercion con- 
nected with it. 

The following extract from Banner of Light, February 



254 Universal Spiritualism 

17, 1906, presents the case so fairly that comment upon 
Miss Clark's explanations would be superfluous : 

"In the Banner's issue of February 10th an instance is 
given by Dr. John D. Quackenbos of the healing of a 
young woman as the result of hypnotic suggestion, under 
the heading 'Hypnotism Conquers Death.' 

" The writer begs leave to take exception, and emphasize 
the fact that hypnotism, pure and simple, formed no part 
of the cure related. Hypnosis — as the word implies — is an 
artificial sleep, in which state the soul of the subject is only 
semi-conscious, and obeys the dictation of another and 
stronger will. In this instance, however, there was simply 
an appeal from a strong, healthy soul to the sluggish, torpid 
soul of the patient to arouse, to assert itself, which dormant 
consciousness then responded to the call and came to the 
front to resume the control and inspiration of its own or- 
ganism. The mind awoke instead of being put to sleep, 
the opposite condition from hypnosis. This is spiritual 
healing, the power of the regnant soul made manifest, and 
is exercised constantly by those who do not practice hyp- 
notism, who can ' show you a more excellent way,' those 
who serve gladly as willing instruments through whom 
divine agencies can bring a baptism of health and strength. 

" A prominent professor of Harvard, himself an advocate 
of hypnotism, once affirmed that ' the effects of hypnotism 
are always superficial and temporary.' The worthy Dr. 
Quackenbos (perhaps unconsciously), possessed doubtless 
a strong healing gift, an imperative soul ; for the mind, per 
se, has no healing power, the efficacy of the human will is 
limited, but the possibilities of the enfranchised spirit, in 
its at-one-ment with Omnipotence, are boundless." 

During natural sleep it is often possible to accomplish 



Sleep As An Educator 255 

great good is the training of children who are often highly 
amenable to right suggestions when asleep, which appeal 
directly to their higher consciousness, which is then awake. 
The methods to be employed are various, but it is never 
necessary either to waken a sleeping child or to put a 
waking child to sleep, in order to give a suggestion. 

When a child is naturally sleeping, you may approach 
the bedside and begin talking to the sleeper in a gentle but 
decided voice. If the child awakes continue your con- 
versation, but do not raise your voice to any excited tone 
or speak in a high or aggressive key. Speak to the sleeper 
quietly, kindly, firmly, with assurance in every accent, 
and as all suggestions, to be effective, must be purely affir- 
mational, mention only those good habits which you desire 
to aid the child to practice. 

The inner consciousness of the sleeper receives will- 
ingly the good suggestions you kindly make, and these 
sink into what some modern psychologists call the " sub- 
self" or " subjective mind," and having found lodgment 
therein, they form a base for future outward conduct. 

It cannot be denied that we often enjoy spiritual com- 
munion during the night, and it is altogether wrong to 
deny that when we are soundly sleeping we receive infor- 
mation which we often possess and utilize during our day 
hours, though we may not recollect when or how we re- 
ceived it. 

The chief difficulty with those who postulate uncon- 
sciousness during sleep is that they do not realize that we 
may be temporarily forgetful of experiences which we have 
enjoyed in sleep, and though for a while unmindful of 
them still capable of recollecting them. Memory and rec- 
ollection are not identical. We are all possessed of more 



256 Universal Spiritualism 

memory than recollection and when people study to " im- 
prove memory ' ' they are really seeking to gain a fuller 
mastery over recollection. 

We all know how frequently we remember, forget, and 
remember again. We are all conscious of how completely 
certain facts have slipped our memories, often. for a long 
time, and then quite unexpectedly these memories revive 
without apparently any external stimulus. These facts 
ought to be weighed much more carefully than they gener- 
ally are, and a careful weighing of them will of necessity 
result in our accounting for them in one or the other of the 
following ways — we shall either admit that we contain a re- 
ceptacle of knowledge far greater than we credit ourselves 
with possessing, or we shall have recourse to the theory of 
unseen spiritual prompters who may afford the necessary 
stimulus to reawaken our dormant consciousness. 

A great many interesting and valuable results are obtain- 
able while we are sleeping, and among them we should note 
the benefit and enlightenment we often gain while sleeping, 
provided that before going to sleep we have rightly disposed 
our minds for the reception of knowledge. 

A few notable historic cases of truly celebrated in- 
dividuals may serve to aid the reader in an honest en- 
deavor to verify our main contention. Shakespeare's 
plays abound in allusions to sleep, and among the most 
striking passages we may refer to the incident of Brutus in 
Julius Caesar, who cannot sleep immediately he begins to 
entertain the thought that Caesar must be put to death that 
Rome be liberated. 

Then in Henry VII we have these thrilling words de- 
scribing the result of mental distress in depriving the King 
of sleep : 



Sleep As An Educator 257 

«• How many thousand of my poorest subjects 
Arc at this hour asleep ! O gentle Sleep, 
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee 
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down 
Nor steep my senses in forgetfulness ? " 

A prevailing misapprehension is almost universal that 
we can gain no good in church, at a concert, or while 
attending a lecture if we are sleeping. Such an error 
needs to be emphatically denied and all persons truly in- 
terested in the cure of nervous ailments should be the very 
first to protest vigorously against so nerve-wrecking a 
delusion. 

There are many well-meaning people who would greatly 
enjoy attending evening functions of various kinds, were 
they not deterred by the fear that they might sleep during 
public exercises. These misguided folk need to study the 
literature of classic times and learn how much good suf- 
ferers were wont to receive while sleeping in consecrated 
temples j and as modern churches invite the public to 
enter for prayer, meditation and rest, church edifices may 
well be employed for all these uses, separately and 
collectively. 

Working people are often sleepy in the evening but they 
need a change and recreation, and this cannot be obtained 
by remaining in the house when a strong desire is felt to 
go elsewhere. A new atmosphere filled with joyous and 
vigorous mental currents is often necessary to recuperate 
the weary, and after two or three hours spent in so vitaliz- 
ing a surrounding the no longer tired workman or work- 
woman can return to home or lodging and sleep peacefully 
throughout the night. 

We often hear people exclaim that they are too tired to 



258 Universal Spiritualism 

sleep, and that is precisely the case, but this tiredness can 
often be speedily overcome in a changed and pleasant 
environment. Dr. Bigelow very wisely tells us that "it is 
not uncommon for those who have no habit or inclination 
to sleep during the morning hours of secular days, to be 
overcome with somnolency in church, soon after the 
devotional exercises are begun, and who find it impossible 
to derive any edification from them until they have lost 
themselves for a moment or two in absolute unconscious- 
ness. 

"Then they have no difficulty, sometimes a lively pleas- 
ure in attending to the exercises which follow. The wor- 
shiper is then withdrawn from the familiar excitement of 
customary avocations. v It is idle to suppose that in these 
few moments of repose, upright in his pew, he has rested 
enough, in the common acceptation of that word, to re- 
pair any waste of tissue that would explain the new sense 
of refreshment that ensues. 

" He has received in that brief retirement from the world, 
some reinforcements which manifestly are not dependent 
upon time or space for their efficacy — spiritual reinforce- 
ments only. He has removed himself, or been removed 
further away, out of sight or hearing or thinking, so to 
speak, of his phenomenal life, and nearer to the source of 
all life." 

Strabo referring to Moses, whom he calls an Egyptian 
priest, speaks of his having led those who followed him 
out of cities to the open country because there they might 
more readily commune with Deity, and also speaks of a * 
sanctuary without idols in which great blessings were con- 
ferred on those who slept within it. 

The famous Greek temple dedicated to Esculapius is 



Sleep As An Educator 259 

said to have healed multitudes who slept in it. On many 
instances the presiding divinity is said to have revealed to 
sufferers during sleep the means they should pursue in 
order to get free from the ailments which oppressed them. 
One of the most famous instances on record of remarka- 
ble enlightenment received in sleep is two thousand years 
old. 

Cicero made the record and Macrobius discovered it 
after it had been supposed lost for fifteen centuries. The 
vision of Publius Cornelius Scipio, the second Scipio 
Africanus, while he was military tribune in Africa and 
guest of Prince Massanissa, gives striking confirmation 
of the illumination we may receive while we are spiritually 
detached from all relation with the phenomenal world in 
which we spend our waking consciousness. 

Scipio relates that after much talk about politics and 
government, and especially of his illustrious ancestor the 
first Africanus, a deeper sleep than ordinary came over 
him in which his ancestor very distinctly appeared to him 
and told him that the preservation of the country de- 
pended entirely upon him ; at the same time the younger 
Scipio was informed by his ancestor that many perils con- 
fronted him, but he was assured that if he were faithful in 
the discharge of his every obligation, a special state of 
blessedness awaited him after death. 

Scipio declares that though terrified', not so much at the 
prospect of death as at the thought that trusted friends 
were proving treacherous, he interrogated the spirit con- 
cerning his father Paulus, and others whom he thought 
had died ; the spirit answered him in these words " They 
are alive indeed, for they have escaped from the fetters of 
the body as from a prison." 



260 Universal Spiritualism 

Then Scipio enquired why, if the life beyond death was 
more glorious than this present existence, he should not 
hasten to it, but he received the faithful reply from Paulus 
who also appeared to him : " Not so, my son, unless that 
God, whose temple is all this which you behold, shall free 
you from this imprisonment in the body you can have no 
admission to this place : for men have been created under 
this condition, that they should keep that globe which you 
see in the middle of this temple, and which is called the 
earth. 

"And a soul has been supplied to them from those 
supernal fires which you call constellations and stars, and 
which, being globular, are animated with divine spirit, and 
complete their cycles and revolutions with amazing 
rapidity. Therefore you, my Publius, and all good men 
must preserve your souls in the keeping of your bodies, 
nor without the order of that Being who bestowed them 
upon you, are you to depart from mundane life, lest you 
seem to desert the duty of a man which has been assigned 
to you by God." 

After this exordium against suicide, much good doctrine 
was given by the father to the son, and as the spirits 
vanished, Scipio awoke from sleep. We have in this fine 
old testimony only one out of many striking narrations 
proving how distinguished men in all ages have enjoyed 
spiritual enlightenment while asleep, and what has oc- 
curred in days of old is occurring now also, and can and 
will continue to occur whenever opportunity is given for 
its occurrence. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

SPIRITUAL MEDIUMSHIP— REASONABLE VIEWS 
OF MEDIUMSHIP CONTRASTED WITH POP- 
ULAR FALLACIES CONCERNING IT 

Many readers of current literature dealing with psychic 
questions in general must be very much confused on ac- 
count of the bewilderingly divergent views expressed by 
different writers who attempt to deal with the intricate 
question of human sensitiveness by recourse to a single 
strained hypothesis. These discording hypotheses of 
different theorists are often gravely set forth as final and 
authoritative, in consequence whereof many superficial 
readers, who are easily captivated by pretentious claims, 
commit themselves without any first-hand investigation to 
whatever theory is set forth by some author whose opinions 
they chance to favor. Since the publication of Hudson's 
"Law of Psychic Phenomena" a number of writers and 
lecturers have arisen who on the basis of Hudson's famous 
theory of " Two minds " have undertaken to explain away 
all spiritualistic evidences by calling upon the " subjective 
mind" to account for everything that could not be ex- 
plained by trickery. Given a theory which admits of no 
limitation, and a resolute determination to explain every- 
thing by means of it, the way is at once clear for the 
demolition of every evidence which may be in conflict 
with it. Hudson has written many good things and his 
contribution to the literature of modern psychology is de- 
cidedly valuable, but his views on Spiritualism often border 

261 



262 Universal Spiritualism 

upon the absurd and they are certainly not endorsed by 
any truly scientific men who have conducted independent 
investigations. Hudson's most ridiculous conclusions, 
which are certainly not warranted by his original prem- 
ises, are endorsed by Henry Frank and many other popular 
speakers who make statements with great enthusiasm in 
public addresses and through the press whicn when sub- 
mitted to impartial examination are found to be so utterly 
one-sided as to possess very little if any, philosophic value. 
Suppose we now accept as true the hypothesis of a dual 
mind, which is by no means unreasonable, even if we use 
Hudson's terminology and insist upon "objective" and 
" subjective " as terms to be universally employed, there is 
still no solid ground whatever for denying spirit-com- 
munion or for speaking adversely concerning mediumship. 
Hudson's second popular book in his series of five, is en- 
titled "A Scientific Demonstration of the Future Life." 
In that volume he has endeavored to prove that the " sub- 
jective mind " is the seat of the telepathic faculty and that 
its chief field of functioning is in the life beyond death. 
Accepting this statement at its full value it can lend no 
support to any denial of spirit-communion for no author 
has vouched for the facts of telepathy more valiantly than 
Hudson. Granting that two "subjective minds" are so 
en rapport that one can communicate intelligibly with the 
other while both are still associated with "objective 
minds " prior to physical dissolution, there is no reason 
for supposing that the same "subjective" communion 
cannot continue after the "objective mind " in the case of 
one of the communicating parties has passed away with the 
demise of the physical body. 

Though the word "mediumship" is placed under the 



Spiritual Mediumship 263 

ban and treated by many authors who indulge in sweeping 
assertions as allied with insanity and all manner of path- 
ological and even criminal conditions, a sane consideration 
of its true nature and real import will enable every rational 
student of psychology to discriminate without much diffi- 
culty between healthy and unhealthy symptoms. We will 
admit that highly sensitive persons are usually of high- 
strung nervous temperament and if subjected to unpleasant 
and unwholesome surroundings they are apt to be afflicted 
with distempers common to their type, but such an ad- 
mission only counsels to caution, it never logically leads to 
condemnation of mediumship in its entirety. If we can sift 
out the kernels of wheat from the mass of chaff and eliminate 
the wholesome grain from the enormous growth of tare or 
cockel which we find in such books as ' ' The Great Psycho- 
logical Crime," which Henry Frank pronounced authori- 
tative {Banfier of Light, Boston, January 13, 1906) we 
shall find that the basis of all outcry against mediumship 
is that it exposes the medium to control and coercion from 
an unseen, and often from an unknown source, and that 
such submission of one will to another is detrimental to 
health and character. That there is some degree of reason 
in such a statement no reasonable person will deny, but 
we are prepared to entirely refute the insinuation that 
mediumship is necessarily anything other than a voluntary 
sensitiveness enabling two or more friends to enjoy com- 
munion with each other. Accepting the phenomena of 
telepathy as legitimate, and neither Hudson nor his fol- 
lowers ever seem to condemn it, it logically follows that 
simple mediumship involves no more than the practice of 
telepathy extended into the post- mortem state which, if 
Hudson's theory be correct, is only the survival of a func- 



264 Universal Spiritualism 

tion of the "subjective mind" which is always involved 
in every telepathic transaction. It seems impossible for 
some people to get anything like a clear idea of what the 
so-called "next" or "future" state of man can be, and 
because a crude theory is invented, which has no founda- 
tion in fact or reason, that some marvelous and inconceiv- 
able change occurs at the instant of physical transition, we 
are either told that it is extremely dangerous or positively 
wrong to commune with our friends who have left their 
earthly bodies or else that it is impossible for us to do so. 
Neither F. W. H. Myers in his monumental work " Human 
Personality, its Survival of Bodily Death," Minot J. Savage 
in his "Life Beyond Death" and " Can Telepathy Ex- 
plain ? " or Professor Hyslop in his " Science and a Future 
Life" have fallen into any such error, and we advise a 
careful perusal of the books mentioned on the part of all 
who desire to read the sober utterances of unprejudiced 
men of high intellectual ability who have not allowed 
prejudice to warp their judgment. That a word of caution 
should be given to excitable and unreflecting dabblers in 
psychic experimentation we fully admit, but words of 
caution need to be cautiously uttered and they must be 
voiced without prejudice if they are to prove salutary. 
Mediumship intelligently viewed presents two distant phases 
or aspects which are, in a sense, diametrically opposed, and 
we suppose it must be with only one of these that opponents 
of mediumship are acquainted. The objectionable or un- 
desirable aspect of the question borders upon what 
Dr. J. M. Peebles and many other influential Spiritualists 
designate "obsession," which means that one mind is so 
far under the dominion of another, and that other a very 
crude or distorted one, that individual mental liberty is 



Spiritual Mediumship 265 

impossible until the " obsessing" influence has been re- 
moved. Miscellaneous public circles, in which people 
gather with all sorts of mixed motives and all varieties of 
moral, mental, and physical conditions, are sources of 
grave danger to highly sensitive people who are of weak 
and yielding disposition and have not developed around 
them a protective aura. We can also conscientiously in- 
veigh against all attempts" to exercise any psychic gift or 
faculty for any other than a noble purpose, and were con- 
demnations of mediumship or mediumistic practices 
directed solely against pernicious customs we should 
heartily endorse even an anathema directed against per- 
versions. But we must not permit ourselves to confound 
the innocent with the vicious, or the helpful with the harm- 
ful, though that is exactly what is done by sensational de- 
claimers against mediumship at large. Very much good 
is often accomplished through clairvoyance and very much 
more good by means of clairsentience, and oftentimes a spirit- 
message conveyed through an entranced medium brings 
comfort to the sorrow-stricken and needed instruction to 
the perplexed. Home circles properly conducted in a pure 
atmosphere and where aspirations are noble are productive 
of excellent results, and it is abundantly shown that me- 
diumship exercised in such surroundings conduces to 
enlarged health and increased mental and ethical develop- 
ment. The claim has been made that Indian spirits always 
manifest themselves during early stages of mediumistic de- 
velopment and that this is an evidence that the "sub- 
jective mind ' ' is remanifesting some ancestral states, the 
remains of which are contained with it, and it is further 
said that this proves retrogression or reversion to some 
primitive condition. In reply to that stupid and almost 



266 Universal Spiritualism 

foundationless allegation we have but to call attention to 
the fact that nowhere except in America do Indian spirits 
usually manifest, unless some American medium travels to 
another country and introduces her unseen escorts to a 
foreign audience, and further let it be remembered that a 
very large percentage of people of American birth are not 
descended from North American Indians any more than 
are natives ,of European countries who rarely, if ever, un- 
earth Indian spirits from their subconsciousness during 
incipient stages of mediumistic development. Whence then 
the proof of Atavism ? The real distinction which should 
always be emphasized between a sort of sensitiveness which 
may be a kind of relic of the past, and a totally different 
variety which foreglimmers a higher condition for the future, 
is that the former is always involuntary or sub- volitional, 
though not invariably harmful, while the latter is always 
voluntary or volitional. Sensitiveness needs to be regu- 
lated and controlled, we should never permit ourselves to 
be governed by it. It is high time that intelligent Spir- 
itualists take a firm stand on this question, and in view of 
the immense amount of controversy still waging around the 
pros and cons of mediumships it ought to be feasible to 
publish some moderately tempered manual setting forth 
what is and what is not desirable along the path of me- 
diumship and its development. It seems difficult to reach 
a happy middle path between two extremes, as most peo- 
ple are influenced by emotion rather than by logic, the 
work however needs to be done and we must bring to the 
task of doing it no other spirit than that of utterly im- 
partial open-mindedness. Wherever we witness signs of 
disease and degeneracy accompanying the exercise of 
mediumship we should search fearlessly for the cause, but 



Spiritual Mediumship 267 

not blindly fling a sweeping accusation against medium- 
ship in its simplicity or entirety because certain aberrant 
accompaniments are sometimes found attending it. 

Had we, as a people at large, less disposition to yield to 
fashions and submit to customs and conventionalities, no 
matter how foolish or harmful such may be, we should soon 
behold a soul-cheering diminution of those abnormalities 
which do indeed sometimes accompany mediumship, but 
are in no true sense its legitimate or necessary offspring. 
Control or coercion may well be warned against, but willing 
susceptibility to communion with spirit friends and helpers 
is no sign of degeneracy and constitutes no step in the direc- 
tion of insanity. Though notes of reasonable warning need 
often to be raised, warnings must be directed against abuses 
only ; they are senseless and must ever miss their mark 
when they take the form of wholesale denunciation. 
Mediumship is good, only its abuse is evil. To the im- 
partial student of the literature of modern Spiritualism, 
which began to accumulate almost immediately the 
"Rochester Knockings " created a world-wide sensation 
in 1845, it must appear that never in any previous period 
of this planet's history has there been fuller evidence 
established than was collected and authenticated during 
the nineteenth century to convince, even the most sceptical 
among enquirers, that physical dissolution is not the end 
of our conscious individuality. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE SPIRIT WORLD— AS SEEN AND DESCRIBED 
BY ONE WHO HAS VISITED IT FREQUENTLY 

Charles W. Leadbeater serves a highly valuable pur- 
pose as a teacher and illustrator of spiritual philosophy, 
finding much in common between Spiritualism and The- 
osophy when both are rightly understood. We have in- 
troduced this record of wonderful clairvoyance between 
chapters devoted to our own statements on these and 
similar great questions to give to our readers independent 
testimony which agrees very substantially with the views 
of the author based on closely similar experiences. 

The following truly remarkable statements are taken 
(slightly condensed) from articles published in Chicago 
during February, 1906, first in the Tribune, then in the 
Progressive Thinker. We take particular pleasure in pre- 
senting these extracts to our readers because they serve to 
vividly illustrate the kind of visions of the spirit world 
which modern seers are frequently beholding. 

"In my visions and dreams the bright jasper walls I 
can see," sang the poet of " The Home of the Soul." 
But C. W. Leadbeater, in full waking consciousness, sees 
all that eye hath not seen or ear hath heard on earth of the 
glories of the heaven world. He has seen and known the 
seventh heaven. And what he has done he says all can do. 

It is only our lack of development, affirms Mr. Lead- 
beater, only the limitation imposed upon us by this robe 

268 



The Spirit World 269 

of flesh, that prevents us from fully realizing that all the 
glory of the highest heaven is about us here and now, and 
that influences flowing from that world are ever playing 
upon us if we only will understand and receive them. 
" Do not complain and cry," said a great teacher of old, 
"but open your eyes and see. The light is all about you, 
if you would only cast the bandage from your eyes and 
look. It is so wonderful, so beautiful, so far beyond 
what any man has dreamed of or prayed for, and it is for- 
ever and forever." 

Mr. Leadbeater, as a trained Occultist, has cultivated 
his higher senses, his occult faculties, whereby are visible 
to him the heavenly spiritual regions which are shut out 
to carnal eyes. These heavenly regions are worlds of 
subtler substance than the physical world, interpenetrating 
it, and therefore all about us. Heaven is the world of 
thought, the mental plane, as Occultists term it, supremely 
a state of consciousness, the "kingdom of heaven" being 
"within you." The astral plane is the world of feeling; 
the physical plane, the familiar earth of the senses, is the 
world of action. The body of action is the physical body, 
the body of emotion is the astral body, the body of thought 
is the mental body. The immortal soul, which lives for- 
ever, in the heaven world, communicates with the physical 
world by means of physical impacts transmitted to the 
physical brain, thence to the astral, and thence to the 
mental body. The soul is the immortal thinker and ego. 

Scientific Occultism trains the faculties of the higher 
bodies which enable us to see these heavenly regions lying 
all about us. It was thus that Mr. Leadbeater learned to 
journey up through the seven heavens. A radiant sense 
not only of the welcome absence of all evil and discord 



270 Universal Spiritualism 

but of the insistent, overwhelming presence of universal 
joy is the first and most striking sensation experienced by 
him who enters upon the heavenly world, reports the visitor. 
And it never leaves him so long as he remains there, and 
the man who has once experienced it in full consciousness 
will regard the world with widely different eyes forever 
after. 

Let a man imagine himself with these feelings of intense 
bliss and enormously increased power floating in a sea of 
living light, surrounded by every conceivable variety of 
loveliness in color and form — the whole changing with 
every wave of thought that he sends out from the mind, 
and being as he presently discovers, only the expression of 
his thought in the matter of the plane and in its elemental 
essence. For that matter is of the same order as that of 
which the mind-body itself is composed, and therefore 
when that vibration of the particles of the mind-body 
"which we call a thought occurs, it extends itself immedi- 
ately to this surrounding mental matter and sets up corre- 
sponding vibrations in it, while in the elemental essence it 
images itself with absolute exactitude. Concrete thought 
naturally takes the shape of its objects, while abstract ideas 
usually represent themselves by all kinds of perfect and 
geometrical forms. 

If the visitor wishes to observe the plane upon which he 
finds himself it will be necessary for him carefully to 
suspend his thought for the time, so that its creations may 
not influence the readily impressible matter around him and 
thus alter the entire conditions so far as he is concerned. 
He begins to realize that all this magnificence is not a mere 
idle or fortuitous display ; he finds that it all has a mean- 
ing ; a meaning which he himself can understand ; and 



The Spirit World 271 

presently he grasps the fact that what he is watching with 
such ecstasy of delight is simply the glorious color language 
of the angels — the expression of the thought or the conver- 
sation of beings far higher than himself in the scale of ev- 
olution. 

By experiment and practice he discovers that he also 
can use this new and beautiful mode of expression, and by 
this discovery he enters into possession of another great 
tract of his heritage in this celestial realm — the power to 
hold converse with and to learn from its loftier inhabit- 
ants. 

If the visitor wishes to carry his analysis of the plane still 
further and discover what it would be when entirely undis- 
turbed by the thought or conversation of any of its in- 
habitants, he can do so by forming round himself a huge 
shell, through which none of these influences can penetrate, 
and then, holding his own mind perfectly still, examining 
the conditions which exist inside his shell. He is now able 
to perceive another and entirely different series of regular 
pulsations. 

These evidently are universal. They cause no change of 
color, no assumption of form, but flow with resistless regu- 
larity through all the matter of the plane, outward and in 
again, like the exhalations and inhalations of some great 
breath beyond our ken. 

There are several sets of these, clearly distinguishable 
from one another by volume, by period of vibration, and 
by the tone of harmony which they bring, and grander than 
them all sweeps one great wave which seems the heart-beat 
of the system, a wave which, welling up from unknown 
centres on far higher planes, pours out its life through all our 
world, and then draws back in its tremendous tide to that 



272 Universal Spiritualism 

from which it came. In one long, undulating curve it 
comes, and the sound of it is like the murmur of the sea ; 
and yet in it and through it all the while there echoes a 
mighty ringing chant of triumph, the music of the spheres. 
The man who once has heard that glorious song of nature 
never quite loses it again ; even here on this dreary physical 
plane of illusion he hears it always as a kind of undertone, 
keeping ever, before his mind the strength and light and 
splendor of the real life above. 

The sense itself by which he is able to cognize all this is 
not the least of the marvels of this celestial world; no 
longer does he hear and see and feel by separate and 
limited organs, as he does down here ; instead of these he 
feels within him a new, strange power, which is not any of 
them and yet includes them all and much more — a power 
which enables him the moment any person or thing comes 
before him not only to see it and feel it and hear it but to 
know all about it instantly inside and out, its causes, its 
effects, and its possibilities. He finds that for him to think 
is to realize ; there is never any doubt, hesitation, or delay 
about this direct action of the higher sense. If he thinks 
of a place, he is there ; if of a friend, that friend is before 
him. Every thought and feeling of his friend lies open as 
a book before him. All knowledge is his for the searching 
— all that does not transcend even this lofty plane ; the past 
of the world is as open to him as the present; the indelible 
records of the memory of nature are ever at his disposal, 
and history, whether ancient or modern, unfolds itself be- 
fore his eyes at will. 

Not only can he review at leisure all history with which 
we are acquainted, correcting, as he examines it, the many 
errors and misconceptions which have crept into the ac- 



The Spirit World 273 

counts handed down to us ; he also can range at will over 
the whole story of the world from its beginning, watching 
the slow development of intellect. Nor is his study con- 
fined to the progress of humanity alone ; he has before him 
as in a museum all the strange animal and vegetable forms 
which occupied the stage in days when the world was 
young ; he can follow all the geological changes which 
have taken place, and watch the course of the great cata- 
clysms which have altered the face of the earth again and 
again. 

The lowest heaven has for its principal characteristic, af- 
fection for family or friends, unselfish but usually some- 
what narrow. One of the first persons Mr. Leadbeater en- 
countered in heaven was a mother who had died about 
twenty years ago and left behind her two sons, to whom 
she was deeply attached. Naturally they were the most 
prominent figures in her heaven, and quite naturally, too, 
she thought of them as she had left them. The love 
which she thus poured out ceaselessly upon these mental 
images was thus really acting as a beneficent force 
showered down upon the grown up men in this physical 
world. 

Along these lines only is conscious communication pos- 
sible between those still imprisoned in the physical body 
and those who have passed into this celestial realm. A 
soul may be shining out gloriously through his image in a 
friend's heaven life, and yet in his manifestations through 
the physical body on earth that friend may be entirely un- 
conscious of all this, and so may suppose himself unable 
to communicate with his departed friend. But if that soul 
has evolved consciousness to the point of unification and 
can therefore use his full powers while still in the physical 



274 Universal Spiritualism 

body, he can then realize even during this dull earthly life 
that he still stands face to face with his friend as of yore, 
that death has not removed the man he loved, but only 
opened his eyes to the grander, wider life which ever lies 
around us all. In appearance the friend would seem much 
as he did in earth life, yet somehow strangely glorified. 
There is a reproduction of the physical body. , 

The dominant characteristic of the second heaven may 
be said to be anthropomorphic religious devotion. This 
phase of devotion which consists essentially in the perpet- 
ual adoration of a personal deity must be carefully distin- 
guished from those higher forms which find their expres- 
sion in performing some definite work for the deity's sake. 
Some of the most characteristic examples of this plane are 
to be found among women, who indeed form a large 
majority of its inhabitants. A quaint and pretty example 
of the heaven life of a child, aged seven, showed him oc- 
cupied in reenacting in the heaven world the religious 
stories which his Irish nurse had told him down here, and, 
best of all, he loved to think of himself as playing with the 
infant Jesus, helping him to make those clay sparrows which 
the power of the Christ-child is fabled to have brought to 
life and caused to fly. 

The chief characteristic of the third heaven may be de- 
fined as devotion, expressing itself in active work. The 
Christian on this plane, for example, instead of merely 
adoring his Saviour, would think of himself as going out 
into the world to work for him. It is especially the plane 
for the working out of great schemes and designs un- 
realized on earth — of great organizations inspired by re- 
ligious devotion and usually having for their purpose 
some philanthropic object. On this plane the higher 



The Spirit World 275 

type of sincere and devoted missionary activity finds ex- 
pression. 

The fourth heaven is arranged into four main divisions 
— unselfish pursuit of spiritual knowledge ; high philo- 
sophic or scientific thought ; literary or artistic ability exer- 
cised for unselfish purposes, and service for the sake of 
service. We find here many of those noble and unselfish 
thinkers who seek insight and knowledge only for the pur. 
pose of enlightening and helping their fellows. 

Here we find all our greatest musicians ; Mozart, Bee- 
thoven, Bach, Wagner, and many others are still flooding 
the heaven world with harmony far more glorious even 
than the grandest which they were able to produce when 
on earth. It seems as if a great stream of divine music 
poured into them from higher regions and was specialized 
by them and made their own to be sent forth through all 
the planes in a great tide of melody which adds to the bliss 
of all around. 

Those who are functioning in full consciousness in the 
heaven world will clearly hear and fully appreciate this 
magnificent outpouring. 

Here also was one of earth's failures — for the tragedies 
of earth-life leave strange marks even in heavenly places. 
In the world where all thoughts of loved ones smile upon 
man as friends he was thinking of writing a great book 
and for the sake of it had refused to use his literary power 
in making mere sustenance from paltry hack work ; but 
none would look at his book, and he walked the streets de- 
spairing, till sorrow and starvation closed his eyes to earth. 
He had been lonely all his life — in his youth friendless and 
shut out from family ties, and in his manhood unable to 
work only in his own way, pushing aside hands that would 



276 Universal Spiritualism 

have led him to a wider view of life's possibilities than the 
earthly paradise he longed to make for all. Now, as he 
thought and wrote, though there were none whom he had 
loved as personal or ideal helpers who could make part of 
this, his mental life, he saw stretching before him the 
Utopia of which he had dreamed, for which he had tried 
to live, and the vast thronging impersonal multitudes whom 
he had longed to serve ; and the joy of their joy surged 
back on him and made his solitude a heaven. When he is 
born again on earth he surely will return with power to 
achieve as well as to plan, and this celestial vision will be 
partially bodied forth in happier terrene lives; 

Is it contended that in heaven we make our own sur- 
roundings and for that reason see only a part of heaven ? 
Surely down here also the world of which a person is sen- 
sible is never the whole of the outer world but only so 
much of it as his senses, intellect, education, enable him to 
I take in. What does he know as a rule even of the more 
recondite physical facts which surround him and meet him 
at every step he takes? The truth is that here as in 
heaven life he lives in a world which is largely of his own 
creation. He does not realize it either there or here, but 
that is only because of his ignorance, because he knows no 
better. 

Is it said that in the heaven world a man takes his 
thoughts for real things ? He is quite right ; they are real 
things and on the thought plane, nothing but thought can 
be real. There we recognize that great fact ; here we do 
not; on which plane, then, is the delusion the greater? 
Those thoughts of his are indeed realities, and are capable 
of producing the most striking results upon living men — 
Jesuits which can never be other than beneficial because 



The Spirit World 277 

upon that high plane there can be none but loving thought. 
Thus it will be seen that the theory that the heaven life is 
an illusion is merely the result of a misconception and 
shows imperfect acquaintance with its conditions and pos- 
sibilities ; the truth is that the higher we rise the nearer we 
draw to the one reality. 

The fifth heaven is the true home of the soul and by far 
the most populous of all the heavens. Here are present 
almost all the 60,000,000,000 souls who are said to be en- 
gaged in the present human evolution — all, in fact, except 
the comparatively small number who, by their purity and 
knowledge, are able to pass into higher heavens. It is the 
true home of the souls of nearly all mankind, and here 
lives the soul while the lower mind and body dwell in the 
coarser physical and astral worlds. 

Souls connected with a physical body are distinguishable 
from those enjoying the disembodied state by a difference in 
the vibrations set up on the surface of the globes ; it is 
therefore easy on this plane to see at a glance whether an 
individual is or is not in incarnation at the time. The im- 
mense majority, whether in or out of the body, are but 
dreamily semi-conscious ; those who are fully awake are 
radiant exceptions standing out amid the less brilliant 
crowds like stars of the first magnitude, and between these 
and the least developed are ranged every variety of size 
and beauty of color, each representing the exact stage of 
evolution at which he has arrived. 

Passing from the fifth to the sixth heaven is like going 
from a great city to a peaceful countryside ; for at the pres- 
ent stage of evolution only a small minority of individuals 
have risen to this loftier level, where even the least ad- 
vanced is definitely self-conscious and also conscious of his 



278 Universal Spiritualism 

surroundings. The soul on this level is aware of the pur- 
pose and method of evolution ; he knows that he is en- 
gaged in a work of self-development, and recognizes the 
stages of physical and post-mortem life through which he 
passes in his lower vehicles. The personality with which 
he is connected is seen as a part of himself, and he en- 
deavors to guide it, using his knowledge of the past as a 
storehouse of experience from which he formulates princi- 
ples of conduct, clear and immutable convictions of right 
and wrong. These he sends down into his lower mind, 
superintending and guiding its activities. 

The seventh heaven, the most glorious level of the men- 
tal world, has but few denizens as yet from our humanity, 
for on its heights dwell none but "Masters of Compassion 
and Wisdom ' ' and their initiated pupils. Of the beauty of 
form and color and sound no words can speak, for mortal 
language has no terms in which these radiant splendors may 
find expression. Enough that they are, and that some of 
our race are wearing them, the earnest of what others shall 
be, the fruition of which the seed was sown on lowlier 
planes. 

From this highest heaven come down most of the in- 
fluences poured out by the Masters of Compassion as they 
work for the evolution of the human race, acting directly 
on the souls of men, shedding on them inspiring influences 
and energies which stimulate spiritual growth, which en- 
lighten the intellect, and purify the emotions. Hence 
genius receives its illuminations ; here all upward efforts 
find their guidance. 

As the sun's rays fall everywhere from one centre and 
each body that receives them uses them after its nature, so 
from the Elder Brothers of the race fall on souls the light 



The Spirit World 279 

and life which it is their function to dispense, and each 
uses as much as it can assimilate and thereby grows and 
evolves. Thus, as everywhere else, the highest glory of 
the heavenly world is found in the glory of service. They 
who have accomplished their mental evolution are foun- 
tains from which flow strength for those who are still climb- 
ing. 



CHAPTER XX 
TELEPATHY AND CLAIRVOYANCE 



There are few thinkers and still fewer experimentalists 
in the field of psychical research who are ready to draw 
a hard and fast line between one phase of psychical 
phenomena and another, for so closely interblended are 
various phases of psychical activity that it seems practic- 
ally impossible to separate them, so persistently coex- 
istent even through distinct are they. As Telepathy 
means feeling at a distance, and Clairvoyance means clear 
sight, we may not incorrectly add that one of the principal 
meanings of Clairvoyance is seeing at a distance, a dis- 
tance so much greater than ordinary as to make its range 
of vision appear decidedly peculiar. In cases of simple 
Telepathy the general inference is that a message is 
distinctly conveyed from one place to another, and from 
one person to another, by some far subtler agent than is 
recognized in the ordinary affairs of common life. When 
the factor of Clairvoyance enters, the phenomena be- 
comes complicated, demands further investigation and 
presents a far more intricate problem for solution. It is 
sufficiently marvelous for most people to be told that a 
person, a thousand or more miles distant, Can transmit his 
thought accurately, causing you to understand his mean- 
ing as though he were actually by your side physically and 
conversing with you face to face, but as in the case of our 
own experiences, with Lady Caithness and others, vision as 
well as feeling, and mental perception have to be taken 

280 



Telepathy and Clairvoyance 281 

into account. Though such experiences have been 
designated telepathic, they include additional evidence in 
support of Clairvoyance. G. F. C. Grumbine in his 
book entitled "Clairvoyance," includes under that single 
heading almost all that we are accustomed to refer to as 
illumination, insight, intuition, etc. The use of the word 
" Clairvoyance "in so broad a sense is probably no viola- 
tion of etymology, as clear vision is certainly the bulwark 
of every seer or seeress, and those titles were continually 
applied to prophets and prophetesses in days of old, as the 
Bible abundantly testifies. The chief difficulty en- 
countered in any endeavor to demonstrate telepathic com- 
munion is the obtuseness of many people to psychic im- 
pressions when the limitation is not found on the side of 
the would-be transmitter of information psychically. 
Concentration of thought and of gaze are very closely 
allied ; the former is the great essential to success in 
Telepathy, the latter is equally necessary for the culture 
of Clairvoyance. 

The successful telepathist is one who can and does 
definitely fix his mind on one object to the exclusion of all 
others ; he has acquired the excellent all-important habit 
of thinking of just one thing at a time, never permitting 
two thoughts to become entangled. The seer or clairvoy- 
ant is one who as resolutely gazes upon one thing at a 
time, never allowing his vision to be confused, or his 
attention distracted, no matter how great the provocation 
or temptation to eye-wandering, may be. Though there 
certainly are authentic instances on record of children 
whose Clairvoyance has been wonderful, though they 
have undergone no training whatever, these little ones 
seem not to be subject to the need of those mental ex- 



282 Universal Spiritualism 

ercises which the majority of adults find necessary, first 
to get them out of bad habits and then to get them into 
good ones. In the case of the remarkable children we 
refer to, there are no obstacles to be overcome and they 
are by nature of a quiet contemplative turn of mind or 
else so extremely alert that we may safely decide that their 
extremely transparent mental organization furnishes ex- 
actly the instrument needed for demonstrating to less 
enlightened people the reality of a spiritual universe. 
Grown people are for the most part anxious and fussy, and 
to the extent that they have allowed themselves to become 
apprehensive or careworn they have unconsciously built a 
wall or barrier around them psychically, so that they have 
become opaque or obtuse instead of transparent or diaph- 
anous as to their auric envelope. Theosophists dwell 
much upon auras and a consideration of what affects the 
human aura is always an important study. The aura of a 
human being resembles closely the atmosphere of a planet. 
No less an astronomer than Dorman Steele undertook to 
suggest an interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis 
based on astronomical considerations, tending to the 
thought that the work of the fourth creative day — viewed 
from the terrestrial or geocentric standpoint, from which 
the author of the Pentateuch was viewing the universe — 
had no reference to the creation of the sun or the starry 
hosts, but only to the clearing of the earth's atmosphere 
to such an extent that during the fourth great geologic 
period the sun's rays began to penetrate and dissipate the 
dense fogs and vapors which had long encircled this 
planet, and thus the star-bespangled firmament became 
visible from an earthly viewpoint. Whether any of us are 
interested or not in the essentially historical question raised 



Telepathy and Clairvoyance 283 

by the foregoing opinion on a much disputed document, 
the illustration serves remarkably well to enforce a true 
and reasonable view of how the clairvoyant faculty can be 
developed or, we may say, how it often presents itself as 
already actively existent. 

The auric belt or zone which surrounds an individual is 
dense or bright in proportion to the mental clearness or 
fogginess of the one who generates the aura. People who 
live mentally in the cellars of their nature, never rising in 
thought above the contemplation of material foibles may 
develop a very crude sort of clairvoyance, scarcely worthy 
of so dignified a name, but the higher and distinctly en- 
nobling aspects of the faculty are entirely beyond them, 
beyond their experience because far above their interest. 
Clairvoyance is by no means an unmixed blessing though 
it is capable of being so used as to prove always and only 
an advantage to its possessor and to all who are privileged 
to share in its revelations. The wise prophets of ancient 
Israel, who were themselves seers of the highest rank, 
knew enough of Chaldean and Babylonian psychism to 
be able to warn the people to whom they preached against 
a misdirected agent, which because of misdirection oc- 
casioned untold and inestimable misery. 

Narrow, prejudiced commentators are very apt to exercise 
no discrimination whatever when expounding the letter 
of biblical text, but thoughtful unbiased students never 
fall into the error of supposing that invectives hurled against 
witchcraft and necromancy had any reference to simple 
and profitable Clairvoyance. Every great and accepted 
prophet has been renowned as a clairvoyant, but when 
unscrupulous people desecrated a noble faculty, not only 
for money, but to serve the ends of malice, there arose an 



284 



Universal Spiritualism 



outcry against the very gift itself which had been thus 
prostituted. It was nothing but shameless sensuality, often 
of the most revolting types, which drove many well-mean- 
ing teachers to proclaim asceticism as the highest good ; 
in like manner abuse of psychic endowments has led to a 
blind, ignorant terror-stricken denunciation of those noble 
and beneficent psychic endowments which, have ever 
characterized by their high presence the greatest moral 
teachers of our race. 

Sir Wm. Crookes, one of England's most illustrious 
scientific men, has on several occasions given publicity to 
his theory of brain-waves and to a kindred conception of 
an ether-substance, along which intelligence can be trans- 
mitted at an almost incalculable rate of speed to practically 
interminable distances. The sensitive man or animal who 
can feel the quivering or vibrating of this ether is 
" mediumistic "to an unusual extent in the estimation of 
investigators in the psychic field who are not personally so 
susceptible to impressions. 

Animal worship as indulged in by the ancient Egyptians 
and many other historic peoples is largely to be explained 
on the basis of their great admiration for psychic demon- 
strations and their wish to unfold psychically themselves. 
Witnessing the extraordinary sensitiveness of dogs, cats 
and other familiar animals they supposed these creatures 
to be in close and favored communion with divinities with 
whom they hoped to curry favor by showing honor to the 
animals who were the recipients of their singular esteem. 
It is well worth any student's while to read such portions 
of the Egyptian Book of the Dead as have been translated 
into English for the sake of understanding the probable 
origin and certain animus of several peculiar religious cults 



Telepathy and Clairvoyance 285 

which are attracting great attention now that the world 
seems on the lookout for a new religion, and while search- 
ing for an acceptable one is devoting much time and 
thought to a reexamination of the oldest as well as the 
youngest which can be offered for contemplation. A 
study of animal life is always entertaining and instruct- 
ive, and as in some directions certain animals excel 
us in our present stage of development, we should not be 
too proud to observe our four-footed companions with a 
view to learning all they are able to suggest to us. It is 
noticeable everywhere that those animals which display 
the most remarkable sagacity, evince ability to discover 
lost children, and render other services of priceless value, 
are very thorough in all they undertake and enter into 
whatever they do with zest and earnestness. They take a 
great interest in life ; they are thoroughly on the alert 
when anything is going on which in any way interests 
them, and at the same time they are fond of periodic ease 
and can be just as lazy when they are resting as they are 
active when engaged in some pursuit. An excellent rule 
for everybody is : Do whatever you do with all your 
heart; throw yourself unreservedly into all your under- 
takings one after the other ; make yourselves completely 
at home, wherever you may be at present. When you eat 
enjoy your food thoroughly, cultivate a due appreciation 
of the pleasures of the table, give the organ of alimentive- 
ness an opportunity to expand normally ; then when a 
meal is over go to your business or study, whatever that 
may be, and throw your whole energy and interest into 
the work in which you are then engaging. When you re- 
tire for the night, give yourself up wholly to sleep ; ap- 
preciate the boon of slumber, never permit yourself to 



286 Universal Spiritualism 

think contemptuously of repose or wish it were un- 
necessary. Such brief, concise directions as the foregoing 
must be mastered and lived up to before any one is found 
ready to normally or healthfully pursue the path of 
psychical ascension into the upper realms where Clairvoy- 
ance is as normal as our ordinary lesser sight, common to 
every-day people, is normal on its lower plane of expres- 
sion. Saul was sent to seek his father's asses which had 
strayed ; Samuel set Saul's mind at rest, through Clairvoy- 
ance, concerning the asses and then immediately proceeded 
to unfold matters of immeasurably higher moment than 
the whereabouts of a few donkeys. Clairvoyance includes 
the lower as it rises to embrace the higher. It is doubtful 
whether public professional clairvoyants are generally ac- 
curate in their visions, not because they are other than 
honest men and women, but by reason of the impossibility 
of complying with necessary conditions in the surround- 
ings in which most of them live and work. There may be 
a few people in every community who have arrived so 
near to the stage of adepts that they can afford to snap 
their fingers at such conditions as most sensitives find 
necessary for the exercise of their gift, and should we^ 
encounter one of these exceptionally developed people we 
should no doubt be greatly astonished at the revelation 
made to us in a surrounding apparently incompatible with 
the exercise of lucidity. When, however, the clairvoyant 
is only a tyro it is highly essential that the mental as well 
as the physical atmosphere during a " sitting " should be 
held as quiet as possible. Mental pictures are often 
projected on the screen of ether which we ordinarily speak 
of simply as the air of the room. The atmosphere is like 
the screen at a stereopticon exhibition and must be held 



Telepathy and Clairvoyance 287 

steady if the pictures displayed upon it are to appear with 
sufficient distinctness to make the exhibition a success. 
Crystal-gazing, or even looking quietly into a glass of clear 
water, is an introductory help to many embryo sensitives. 
Any practice, indeed, which serves to induce comfortable 
passivity of mind and body is favorable to the display of 
Clairvoyance, but by passivity we do not mean what a 
great many people suppose is intended by that much 
abused word. Activity of desire and expectancy must 
precede passivity in action. There must be an end or 
object in view or there is little reason in the attitude of the 
clairvoyant. It is not usually very profitable to simply sit 
gazing into vacancy, ready to see anything which may 
present itself in a crystal ; there should certainly be some 
definite end in view or object to be gained if the exercise 
is likely to prove profitable in any determinable direction. 
There are a great many things we wish to know which 
transcend the scope of material discovery, and if our 
quest for this additional knowledge is legitimate it is 
perfectly reasonable to believe that we are endowed with 
some means or faculty whereby we can make these dis- 
coveries. Once let the idea of Clairvoyance be brought 
down from the clouds of mysticism in which it has so 
long dwelt and psychical investigation will be so far 
simplified and rationalized that the exercise of Clairvoy- 
ance will be as natural and regular as the employment of 
physical eyesight. Cleared or clarified vision is necessarily 
extended vision and the thought of extension applies 
quite as much to insight as to farsight or foresight. 
Science is now rapidly demonstrating the presence of 
myriads of objects unseen by the average eye yet capable 
of being discerned with the aid of a microscope and often 



288 Universal Spiritualism 

photographed without the employment of other or more 
delicate apparatus than that in constant use among 
photographers. If a clairvoyant says, " I see a form or 
object beside you which you do not see because you are 
not equal to discerning it," there is nothing more wonder- 
ful in that augmented vision of the human seer than in 
the proof afforded by photography or microscopy of the 
presence of the same objects. The present age is happily 
one in which man is coming to believe in himself as well 
as in something external to himself and in consequence of 
this ever enlarging view of man universally the old glamour 
of supernaturalism is waning, while a lawful recognition 
of psychic phenomena is gaining ground continually. 
Culture of the psychic faculty is not so difficult, neither 
is it so very easy, as some suppose. It requires persistent 
attention rather than laborious effort just as the close 
attention we pay to anything often rewards us far more 
than toilsome attempts to force ourselves to acquire knowl- 
edge. Night and darkness have been frequently associated 
with Clairvoyance, because night and shade do not afford 
opportunity or invitation to excessive physical exercise and 
we cannot as a rule do two things well at once. One by 
one our tasks must be fulfilled ; one by one our occupations 
must be dealt with, and as it seems impossible to be awake 
and asleep at the same instant, so does it seem almost 
incredible that we can be seriously occupied with ma- 
terial cares and at the same time keenly alive to what lies 
beyond external ken. Another consideration of the means 
whereby Clairvoyance can be developed, occurs to us as 
we call to mind a narrative concerning some good people 
on the Pacific coast to whom the Klondike excitement 
brought spiritual development. 



Telepathy and Clairvoyance 289 

A happily married couple who had long been interested 
in psychical matters, but had registered no personal evi- 
dence of their own susceptibility to unseen influences, 
were for several months completely separated in body as 
the husband went to Alaska and the wife remained in 
Seattle with her mother. When the man had reached the 
gold fields he could not communicate with his wife in any 
material way as neither telegraph, telephone nor post-office 
was available, and though he had no cause to be anxious 
on her account, as she was a healthy woman living at 
home in a comfortable house among friends, she was 
greatly concerned for his welfare as many alarming ac- 
counts of the dangers and sufferings of miners in a district 
near where she believed her husband to be working had 
reached her ears. Determined to put to a practical test 
the statement often made to her by "sensitives" of her 
acquaintance, that she was an excellent clairvoyant po- 
tentially though actually she had never cultivated her en- 
dowment, she resolved upon devoting some time late every 
evening just before retiring for the night to the liberation 
of her psychic faculty. For three or four nights she sat 
quietly in an easy chair in her sleeping room for over an 
hour but received no evidence of seership. However be- 
fore a week was over she felt herself capable of discerning 
the dim outlines of a mining camp, and shortly the form 
of her husband distinctly appeared to her. Describing 
her experiences to friends (she was always willing to re- 
late them), she declared many times in the most positive 
terms that she had no sensation at all akin to traveling in 
an "astral body" or of being transported through space; 
on the contrary she felt thoroughly at home in her own 
organism, but her vision pierced all intervening space and 



290 Universal Spiritualism 

Alaska was as near as an adjoining dressing-room. When 
her husband returned well and strong and with a larger 
pile of treasure than many miners brought with them, he 
was, to use his own words, "literally dumbfounded" with 
the contents of his wife's diary which she had kept faith- 
fully and which contained minute records of his own ex- 
periences in Alaska while she was in Seattle, and the 
most satisfying and at the same time amazing portions of 
her entries were thoughts of his which had clearly amounted 
to perfect mental messages. 

After closely inspecting the diary and noting the dates 
of the different entries he discovered that whenever he 
had particularly wished to communicate some piece of in- 
formation to his wife to ease her mind concerning his 
health and safety she had received a specially clear and 
strong picture of himself and of his whereabouts, while at 
other times when he had been thinking less intently of his 
home and its inmates her sight of him and his surround- 
ings had been far less distinct. Evidences are everywhere 
multiplying which go far to prove that even so wildly 
romantic a tale as George du Maurier's " Peter Ibbettson " 
may have been built on actual fact, for it does occur that 
when two people are devotedly attached to each other and 
circumstances hold their bodies rigidly apart, the soul- 
sense we may well call Clairvoyance, in company with a 
train of kindred senses beyond our common ken, assert 
themselves right vigorously and afford a present day ex- 
planation of the telling words of Lovelace, "Stone walls 
do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." 

We are now on the very verge of Spiritualism proper 
and we have only to say that though a mass of error has 
been mixed up with its history during the past half century 



Telepathy and Clairvoyance 291 

and more, there is so much of truth in it as a demonstra- 
ble philosophy that through the steady and rapid advance 
of scientific study of all psychic problems now in progress, 
there are arising new and noble phases of mediumship 
.convincing the inquiring multitude that physical dissolu- 
tion is in no sense death in the old blind barbaric meaning 
attached to that ancient word. We are here and now 
spiritual beings and we remain such hereafter. " Death 
hath no power to part the fond, they are together still," is 
a perfectly true statement, and equally true is it that no 
possible terrestrial barriers can separate effectually those 
who are truly linked in the bonds of sincere affection, and 
are therefore united one to the other in spiritual ways, 
which earthly changes can never have power to rupture. 
There are other aspects of clairvoyance apart from those 
we have been touching upon, which are less easily dealt 
with, because they are often mistaken for something they 
certainly are not. We allude to the sight of what are often 
termed ' ' astral pictures ' ' which inexperienced sensitives 
cannot very readily explain, but which deeper students of 
clairvoyance find no difficulty in accounting for. Nothing 
can be more unreasonable and unkind than stamping with 
the brand of falsehood visions which we have not yet 
learned to interpret scientifically. Clairvoyants often 
claim to know nothing of the real nature of what they see, 
consequently they are not justly chargeable with even 
making mistakes if they describe scenes which seem to us 
incongruous and which we may misinterpret in our present 
ignorance of what such visions truly signify. We are 
often greatly pleased with descriptions of absent or de- 
parted friends which strike us at first as extremely accu- 
rate, but when we look more deeply into the question, we. 



292 Universal Spiritualism 

are beset with grave difficulties. A good clairvoyant once 
gave exactly the following description of a departed brother 
to a gentleman in London who was then beginning to seri- 
ously investigate the claims of Spiritualism : "I see a 
young man with you ; he is very much attached to you, 
and is constantly with you ; he appears about twenty-eight 
years of age, certainly not over thirty ; he is dressed in a 
gray tweed suit with a blue cravat ; his hair is light brown, 
rather thin and parted in the middle ; he has a moustache 
but no beard or whiskers. ' ' The gentleman in question 
went to another clairvoyant in another part of London two 
or three days later, and received an almost identical 
description which he declares answers exactly to the ap- 
pearance of his younger brother who passed away quite 
suddenly while on a summer tour in Norway rather less 
than two years previously. The facts in the case are, that 
these two young men were greatly attached to each other 
and that the survivor keeps in his room on the mantelpiece 
a picture of his departed brother very differently dressed, so 
that had either clairvoyant seen the photograph she would 
have described a black suit and a white necktie. When 
the surviving brother last saw the one who has passed 
over, that young man was attired exactly as the two clair- 
voyants have described, but no material portrait has been 
taken of him in that dress. Now comes in the investi- 
gator's difficulty. Do we on passing into spirit life (he 
inquires) permanently retain the exact appearance, even 
to details of apparel, which we presented just before leav- 
ing the mortal frame, and if not why are we told that our 
friends present just such appearances ? There are but two 
rational answers to this most natural question, and they 
are as follows: 1. Many clairvoyants see into our sur- 



Telepathy and Clairvoyance 293 

rounding aura and behold imprinted thereon the pictures 
of events and circumstances which have greatly impressed 
us and which we carry about with us quite unknowingly, 
it may be, as a relatively permanent portion of the contents 
of our psychic picture gallery. 2. Our friends in spirit- 
life when seeking to make known to us the reality of their 
continued interest in us and in our welfare, often show 
themselves to clairvoyant vision in a manner most sure to 
strike us with a conviction of their identity. In the former 
instance we are very unlikely to receive any definite in- 
formation and are apt to feel perplexed and saddened be- 
cause, though our friends are thus accurately described as 
being with us, we never seem to derive a glimmer of in- 
telligence as to their condition or to enjoy any comforting 
assurance that they are truly in communion with us. In 
the latter instance we invariably either receive some char- 
acteristic message, or we feel in some subtle spiritual way 
that we are truly in communion with one whom we love 
and by whom we are loved. All phases of psychic phe- 
nomena are now being considered both critically and sym- 
pathetically by large numbers of intelligent people to an 
extent utterly unprecedented in comparatively recent times, 
and as it is always desirable to be cautious ere we admit too 
much, though we should be ever ready to accept the logic 
of evidence from whatever direction it may come without 
the slightest prejudice, we feel properly thankful for all 
attempted definitions of so wonderful and far-reaching a 
faculty as clairvoyance which help in any way to afford a 
basis for a rational interpretation of its true nature. The 
public is indebted to that fascinating author, C. W. Lead- 
beater, for the following summarization of Clairvoyance 
which we quote from his very popular work, "Man Visi- 



294 Universal Spiritualism 

ble and Invisible," the sub-title of which is " Examples of 
Different Types of Men as Seen by Means of Trained Clair- 
voyance." Chapter three, entitled "Clairvoyant Sight," 
ends with these words, — " The clairvoyant is simply a man 
who develops within himself the power to respond to an- 
other octave out of the stupendous gamut of possible vibra- 
tions, and so enables himself to see more of the world 
around him than those of more limited perception." That 
statement surely applies with equal force to the telepathist 
who feels rather than sees, and to the clairaudient also 
whose especial sensitiveness is in the field of hearing. In- 
creased sensitiveness is the key to the mystery in all cases 
and this can be successfully induced by living a quiet, 
wholesome life, free from undue excitement, subsisting 
upon simple nutritious food, taking a good amount of out- 
door exercise, and above all by determining to live a life 
of untarnished truthfulness, so that the " auric envelope " 
' may be kept unsullied as a reflecting medium. 



CHAPTER XXI 

SPIRITUALISM IN ALL LANDS AND TIMES 
Selected from the Writings of Dr. J. M. Peebles. 

" I exist as I am, that is enough. 
If no other in the world be aware, I sit content. 
And if each and all be aware, I sit content." 

— Walt Whitman. 

Consciously do I feel that this life, with all its 
shadows and struggles, is really worth the living. And 
such, I think, is the general testimony of human experience. 
During many wanderings in savage, semi-civilized, and 
enlightened lands, I have seen a thousand smiles for a single 
tear, and I have heard ten thousand merry peals of 
laughter for a single groan of suffering. Surely, God is 
good. 

But if death, as the atheist contends, "ends all," then 
this life is a little more than a tempest-tossed, tantalizing 
dream. If men rich in possibilities become, in dying, 
only dust and drifting gases, then hope, sympathy, aspi- 
ration for immortality, and all the soul's transcendent attri- 
butes, are nothing but heartless, pitiless mockeries. 

This world is of very little importance unless there is 
another and a higher with equal opportunities and vastly 
better facilities for unfoldment ; another world or worlds 
to look forward to in the future. And the word " future " 
implies faith. The inspired soul feeds in a measure upon 
faith. It is faith in Infinite Wisdom, in Nature's laws and 
faith in man, that moves the wheels of enterprise. And 

295 



2g6 Universal Spiritualism 

it is faith in a future existence that, during all the ancient 
ages, gavg energy and public spirit to earth's teeming 
millions. 

Navigators sailing, Columbus-like, under the inspiration 
of a lofty faith, have discovered new islands and continents. 
Hardy toilers plow and sow and plant in a trusting faith 
that the sun will shine and the harvests come in due season. 
Tradesmen transact business with a confiding faith in 
their fellow-men. Faith is an all-inspiring force in the in- 
ternational relations of foreign commerce and in all the 
higher walks of social and intellectual life. Faith in the 
great, throbbing heart of humanity is sublime, and faith in 
God — the tender, loving, "Our Father who art in 
heaven," — is the divinest, most restful, satisfying emotion 
of the human soul. 

But man cannot live by faith alone any more than by 
bread alone. Faith, while the substance of things hoped 
for, looks towards the mountain top of the ideal and cries 
for light — more light. *' Add," said the apostle, " to your 
faith knowledge." This he himself personally did, ex- 
claiming, "For we know that if this our earthly house were 
dissolved, we have a house not made with hands eternal in 
the heavens." With the true Spiritualist, as with the 
great apostle, faith buds and blossoms, and has its fruition 
in the absolute knowledge of a future conscious existence. 

How did Paul know of " a house not made with hands 
eternal in the heavens," or of those higher spheres of im- 
mortality ? He knew because he had visions ; because he 
was caught up to the third heaven, and because, when en- 
tranced, he heard a voice — a spirit — speaking to him out of 
the unseen. In brief, he knew of a future existence in the 
heavens because he was a Spiritualist — -a spiritualistic me- 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 297 

dium. The disciples were all mediums. That is the 
reason why Jesus selected them. His clairvoyant eye saw 
in them the outputting potencies of marvelous spiritual gifts. 
This period in Jewish history was the opening of a new 
cycle — a new and more spiritual dispensation. 

" God sends his teachers unto every age, 
To every clime and race of men." 

Spiritualism, in some form, has obtained through all the 
ages and among all races. When a maiden died among 
the Senecas of the North American Indians, the heart- 
stricken mourners imprisoned a young bird until it began 
to sing ; then, loading it with caresses and loving messages, 
they released it over the maiden's grave, bidding it not to 
fold its wings nor close its eyes until it had reached ' ' the 
happy hunting grounds" of heaven; and then, feasting in 
silence under some mossy rock or moaning pine for three 
days, these sad-hearted Indians expected responses from the 
loved one by dreams or visions or in the low murmuring 
songs of the night-bird of the forest. 

If Spiritualism means simply converse with departed 
mortals, then it is as ancient as remotest antiquity. Pro- 
fessor Boscowen, the noted archaeologist, says in his 
"Records of the Monuments": "In dream and visions 
the primitive Akkadians no doubt saw, as they declared, 
the shadowy forms of departed human beings, which led 
them to regard them not as simply vanished, but still ex- 
isting as shades in some dark, far distant, subterranean 
place." He further adds : "The inscriptions, as early as 
B. c. 3800, on the tablets show belief in ghosts and a wor- 
ship of a ghost god, ancestral ghosts, the nisi, or spirits, the 
anunas, the friends they once knew, sitting upon their 



298 Universal Spiritualism 

thrones as master spirits, or traversing the vaporous 
underworld, hailing each newcomer with the cry, "Didst 
thou become weak as we, and dost thou realize life as now 
do we? Welcome — welcome to our abodes." This is 
almost the exact phraseology of one of the lately discov- 
ered Babylonian tablets. 

I repeat, if Spiritualism means simply belief in converse 
with departed mortals, then India's throbbing three hun- 
dred millions of to-day are Spiritualists. Their whole re- 
ligious literature abounds in communications with gods, de- 
vas and pitris — their departed ancestors. These latter they 
propitiate. Every household has its familiars. The vo- 
luminous Sanskrit manuscripts, the Vedas and the Upan- 
ishads, frequently mention the Bhutas, Pritas, and Pisachas 
— especially the Pritas : — as familiar ancestral spirits. Their 
sacred books describe their abodes, their obsessing in- 
fluences, their general characteristics, and how to avert 
their control by mantras and invocations. 

During my several visits to India, I never conversed 
with an intelligent Hindoo Pundit who did not believe 
that the invisible regions were filled with different grada- 
tions of conscious intelligence, and that certain classes of 
spirits had the power to communicate with and infest hu- 
manity. They do not encourage spirit communications 
— they fear them. I spent days in Southern India in cast- 
ing out demons — that is, in demagnetizing the Hindoo 
mediums who were obsessed by undeveloped spirits. 

In Ancient Egypt, Spiritualism was the very foundation 
for the national religion. Their hierophants taught the 
initiated that the soul is immortal ; that during several 
lives it passed through several zoether zones, all of which 
were processes of purification. Hermes taught that the 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 299 

visible is but a picture of the invisible world — that this 
earth was surrounded by circles of ether, and that in these 
ether circles the souls of the dead lived and guarded mor- 
tals. Strabo states that in the temple of Serapis at Ca- 
nopus, " great worship was performed and many miraculous 
works wrought, which the most eminent men believed and 
practiced, while others devoted themselves to the sacred 
sleep ' ' that is, the unconscious trance. The consecrated 
temple at Alexandria was still more famous for its oracles, 
consecrated sleep, and the healing of invalids. 

Berosus, in transcribing the early legends of Babylonia 
and Chaldea, describes the gods of heaven and the lower 
elementaries who were in sympathy with them, and often 
influenced the inhabitants of earth both for good and ill. 
They had magical directions for dispossessing disturbing 
demons and for inviting the protection of the good genii 
— in other words, the more exalted spirits. 

A tablet in the library at Nineveh describes seven su- 
preme gods, fifty great gods of heaven and earth, three 
hundred spirits of the lower heavens, and six hundred of 
the earth. These latter were invoked to bring messages 
from the invisible shores of immortality. 

The master minds of Greece, such as Thales, who lived 
some six hundred years b. c, thought that the universe 
was peopled with daimons, who were the spiritual guides 
of human beings and the invisible witnesses of all their 
thoughts and actions. 

Epimenides, the cotemporary of Solon, frequently re- 
ceived divine revelations from the spiritual heavens. 

Zeno declared that tutelary, or guardian, spirits inspired 
his speech and directed his actions. 

Socrates w&s. constantly attended, as every reader of 



300 Universal Spiritualism 

history knows, by his demon guide, with whom he con- 
versed, and whose advice he was proud to receive and 
acknowledge. 

Apuleius, the Roman historian, assured the people that 
the souls of men, when detached from their bodies and 
freed from their physical functions, became a species of 
daimon, or lemurs, who gratified their beneficence in 
watchfully guarding individuals, families, and cities. 

Homer, in the twenty-third book of the Iliad, describes 
the spirit of Patroclus as appearing to Achilles, and ad- 
juring him to bestow the last funeral rites upon the body 
of his friend, that he might the sooner commence his 
spiritual advancement. 

In the eleventh book of the Odyssey, Ulysses is de- 
picted as visiting the underworld regions of the Cimmeri- 
ans, and as conversing with the spirit of Tyresius Elpenor 
and his own mother, from whom he received most encour- 
aging tidings. 

The poet Hesiod, whose verses were so prized by the 
old Greeks that they committed them to memory, be- 
lieved that each conscious soul was a potential portion 
of God, the "Oversoul." Recognizing the conscious ex- 
istence of these souls, or spirits, he thought they were 
drawn earthward from the higher regions by the desires of 
their friends. 

Plutarch informs us that those who aspired to be brought 
into sympathetic communion with the higher intelligences 
of the shadowlands were expected to renounce the follies 
of the world and to practice self-denial, and to bring the 
lower functions and faculties of their natures into complete 
subjection to the spiritual. 

Cicero tells us that the mysteries, which were symbol- 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 301 

ically allied to spiritual invisible presences, enkindled and 
inspired a knowledge of the future life, and made this life 
more pleasant by filling the mind of the dying with beauti- 
ful ideas of cheerfulness and resignation. 

Pythagoras, who visited India, Persia, and Egypt, and 
who had been initiated into the inner court of Isis, was 
one of the most astonishing mediums of antiquity. His 
psychic powers were attested by Claudius JEian, Porphyry 
of Tyre, and Jamblichus, the Neo-Platonist. 

Plato, the favorite pupil of Socrates, and prince of phi- 
losophers, held precisely the same ideas in regard to spirits 
and their communion with mortals as did his great teacher. 
"There are," he said, " daimons, the souls of those who 
have died ; and each human being has a particular spirit 
with him, to be his tutelary and guiding genius during 
his mortal lifetime ; and when the physical life is ended 
this spirit receives and accompanies the enfranchised one 
to its future destiny, the Elysian Fields of immortality. 

The Old and New Testaments, the Apocrypha, and the 
Talmudic writings — all abound, more or less, in angel 
ministries, spirit communications, trances, visions, and 
apparitions. 

Origen, a celebrated bishop, and one of the most learned 
and illustrious that graced the early Christian centuries, 
wrote thus in his " De Principiis " : " What shall we say 
of the Diviners, from whom — by the working of those 
spirits (demons) who have the mastery over them — an- 
swers are given (to those who consult them) in carefully- 
constructed verses ? Those persons, too, whom they term 
Magi (magicians) frequently, by invoking demons over 
boys of tender years, have made them repeat poetical 
compositions and give poetical improvisations which were 



302 Universal Spiritualism 

the admiration and amazement of all. Now these effects, 
we suppose, are brought about in the following manner : 
As holy and immaculate souls after devoting themselves to 
God with all perfection and purity, and preserving them- 
selves from the contagion of evil spirits, and purifying 
themselves by long abstinence, by these means they assume 
a portion of divinity and earn the grace of prophecy and 
other divine gifts. The result of this is that they are filled 
with the working of those spirits to whose service they have 
subjected themselves." 

This erudite Christian Father, Origen, in writing against 
his atheist antagonist, Celsus (200 a. d.), says : " Celsus 
has compared the miracles (spiritual manifestations) of 
Jesus to the tricks of jugglers and the magic of Egyptians, 
and there would indeed be a resemblance between them if 
Jesus, like the practitioners of magic arts, had performed 
his works only for show or worldly gain. ' ' 
• In his celebrated work, " De Anima," Tertullian says : 
" We had a right to anticipate prophecies and the continu- 
ance of spiritual gifts, and we are now permitted to enjoy 
the gift of a prophetess. There is a sister among us who 
possesses the faculty of revelation. Commonly, during 
religious service, she falls into a trance, holding then 
communion with angels, beholding Jesus himself, hearing 
divine mysteries explained, reading the hearts of some 
persons, and administering to such as require it. When 
the Scriptures are read, or psalms sung, spiritual beings 
minister visions to her. We were speaking of the soul 
once when our sister was in the spirit (entranced), and, 
the people departing, she then communicated to us what 
she had seen in her ecstasy, which was afterwards closely 
inquired into and tested. She declared she ' had seen a 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 303 

soul in bodily shape, which appeared to be a spirit, neither 
empty nor formless, but so real and substantial that it 
might be touched. It was tender, shining, of the color of 
the air, but in everything resembling the human form.' " 

For three hundred years after the apostles, visions, 
apparitions, healing gifts and spiritual marvels abounded 
in all Christian countries. Believers, in the name of 
Christ, cast out demons, made the lame to walk and the 
blind to see. And all along down the centuries to the 
Reformation there were rifts in the clouds, lights from 
above, and messages from the invisible world. 

The Roman Catholic Church has never denied the 
miracles — the spiritual manifestations of the ages. All 
the religious movements of the past originated in spiritual 
manifestations. Take as a sample, George Fox, the 
founder of Quakerism ; Ann Lee, the founder of Shaker- 
ism \ the Wesleys, founders of Methodism, and Sweden- 
borg, the founder of the Swedenborgian or New Church. 
Swedenborg held open intercourse with the spiritual world 
during a period of twenty-seven years. The world's re- 
ligious epoch-builders were all possessed of marvelous 
spiritual gifts. Elder Frederick Evans, a distinguished 
American Shaker preacher, used to often say, " Quaker- 
ism began in the spirit, but is ending in the flesh and in 
the worldliness of the world." Sir James Macintosh says 
of Fox's Journal: "It is one of the most extraordinary 
and instructive narratives in the world — which no reader 
of competent judgment can peruse without revering the 
eminent virtue of the writer. ' ' 

This Journal reminds us of, and is a fitting companion 
to, Swedenborg's Diary. The following statements are 
condensed from it ; 



304 Universal Spiritualism 

Born in July, 1624, Fox was naturally, when young, of 
a rather grave deportment. When about nineteen he be- 
came annoyed by the frivolous and profane conversation of 
the young, and spending a night in prayer, he heard a 
voice saying : " Thou seest how young people go together 
in vanity and old people into their graves ; thou must for- 
sake, be a stranger to, all, and be guided by the spirit." 

Traveling to London, and listening by the way to many 
preachers, he remarks : "I was afraid of them, for I was 
sensible that they did not possess what they professed." 
After relating to the clergymen that at times he "heard 
voices and felt the presence of spirits, ' ' one of these jolly 
old clergymen of the Anglican Church told him to " smoke 
tobacco and sing psalms." Another advised him to "go 
to a surgeon and lose some blood." Turning to the Dis- 
senters, he " found them also blind guides." 

Wandering often in quiet places ; fasting frequently with 
Bible in hand ; meditating and battling with doubts and 
temptations, he at last "fell into a trance that lasted four- 
teen days, and many who came to see him during that time 
wondered to see his countenance so changed, for he not 
only had the appearance of a dead man, but seemed to 
them to be really dead. But after this his mind was re- 
lieved of its sorrows, so that he could have wept night and 
day with tears of joy, in humility and brokenness of heart. 
In this state," he says, " I saw into that which is without 
end, and things which cannot be uttered ; and of the 
greatness and infiniteness of the love of God." 

When at Mansfield he "was struck blind," so that he 
could not see, after which, he says, "I went to a village 
and many people accompanied me. And as I was sitting 
in a house full of people, I cast my eyes upon a woman and 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 305 

discerned in her an unclean (undeveloped) spirit. Moved 
to speak sharply, I told her she was under the influence of 
an unclean spirit. Having the gift of discerning spirits, I 
many times saw the states and conditions of people, and 
could try their spirits." 

He frequently healed the sick by laying on of hands. 
To Richard Myer, who had long had a very lame, rheu- 
matic arm, he said: "Stand upon thy legs and stretch 
out thine arm." He did so, and Fox exclaimed : " Be it 
known unto you and to all people that this day you are 
healed." Although Macaulay sneers at Fox's casting out 
devils and performing miracles, many remarkable cases of 
this kind are recorded in his Journal, and were witnessed by 
thousands of people. In his "Life Sketches" he uses 
"Lord," "angels," and "spirits" interchangeably, as do 
the old biblical writers. 

" Coming to within a mile of Litchfield, where shepherds 
were keeping their sheep, I was commanded," he says, "by 
the Lord to put off my shoes. I stood still, for it was win- 
ter, and the word of the Lord was like a fire in me. So I 
put off my shoes and left them with the shepherds, and the 
poor shepherds trembled and were astonished. Then I 
walked on about a mile, and as soon as I was within the 
city the word of the Lord came to me again, saying, 
1 Cry, Woe unto the bloody city of Litchfield ! ' So I 
went up and down the streets, crying with a loud voice, 
1 Woe to the bloody city of Litchfield ! ' It being market 
day, I went into the market-place, and to and fro in the 
several parts of it, and made stands, crying as before, 
1 Woe to the bloody city of Litchfield ! ' And no one 
laid hands on me ; but as I went thus crying through the 
streets, there seemed to be a channel of blood running 



306 Universal Spiritualism 

down the streets, and the market-place appeared like a 
pool of blood. When I had declared what the spirit put 
upon me, I felt myself clear. I went out of the town in 
peace, and, returning to the shepherds, gave them some 
money and took my shoes of them. 

" After this a deep consideration came upon me. Why, 
or for what reason, should I be sent against that city and 
call it ' the bloody city ' ? But afterwards I came to un- 
derstand that in the Emperor Diocletian's time a thousand 
Christians were martyred here in Litchfield. So I was to 
go without my shoes, through the channel of their blood in 
the market-place, that I might raise up the memorial of 
the blood of those martyrs which had been shed a thousand 
years before. The sense of their blood was upon me. ' ' 

These were among the common sayings of the inspired 
George Fox while preaching : " Verily, I heard a voice ; ' ' 
"The spirit was upon me; " " I saw in visions; " " The 
prophecies were open to me." "When, at a meeting of 
Friends in Derby, there was such a mighty power of spirit 
felt," says Fox, "that the people were shaken and many 
mouths were opened to testify that the angels of God do 
minister unto mortal men." 

The original Quakers, like the post- Apostolic Christians, 
were Spiritualists ; but our latter-day Quakers, denying or 
deadening their spiritual gifts by selfishness and worldli- 
ness, have crystallized, and so are a dying religious 
sect. 

In the old Wesley residence, Epworth, England, marked 
spiritual manifestations occurred for years. An account of 
these was written by the Rev. Mr. Hooley, of Haxey, by 
Dr. Adam Clarke, by a writer in the Arminian Magazine 
and others. It is pitiable that modern Methodist preachers 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 307 

do not mention them as among the present demonstrations 
of a future existence. From a large volume by John 
Wesley, entitled " The Invisible World," published over a 
hundred years ago, I make the following quotations : 

"It is true that the English in general indeed, most of 
the men of learning in Europe, have given up all accounts 
of witches and apparitions as mere old wives' fables. I am 
sorry for it, and I willingly take this opportunity of enter- 
ing my solemn protest against this violent compliment 
which so many that believe the Bible pay to those who do 
not believe it. I owe them no such service. I take 
knowledge these are at the bottom of the outcry which has 
been raised, and with such insolence spread throughout the 
nation ; and in direct opposition, not only to the Bible, but 
to the suffrage of the wisest and best of men in all ages 
and nations. They well know (whether Christians know 
it or not) that the giving up of witchcraft (the control of 
undeveloped spirits) is in effect giving up the Bible. And 
they know, on the other hand, that if but one account of 
men with separate spirits be admitted, their whole castle in 
the air (deism, atheism, and materialism) falls to the ground. 
One of the capital objections to all the accounts, which I 
have known urged over and over, is this, l Did you ever 
see an apparition yourself?' No, nor did I ever see a 
murder, yet I believe there is such a thing. Yea, and in 
one place or another murder is committed every day. 
Therefore I cannot, as a reasonable being, deny the fact, 
though I never saw it, and perhaps never may. The tes- 
timony of unexceptionable witnesses fully convinces me of 
both the one and the other." 

" Elizabeth Hobson was born in Sunderland in 1774. 
Her father dying when she was three or four years old, her 



308 Universal Spiritualism 

V 

uncle, Thomas Rea, a pious man, brought her up as his 
daughter. She was a serious child and grew up in the 
fear of God ; yet she had a deep and sharp conviction of 
sin until she was about sixteen years of age, when she found 
peace with God, and from that time the whole tenor of 
her behavior was suitable to her profession. On Wednes- 
day, May 23d, 1788, and the three following days, I 
talked with her at large. But it was with difficulty that I 
could prevail upon her to speak. The substance of what 
she said was as follows : 

" ' From my childhood, when any of my neighbors 
died, whether men, women, or children, I used to see 
them just before, or when they died, and I was not at all 
frightened, it was so common; indeed, I did not then 
know they were dead. I saw many of them by day and 
many of them by night. Those that came when it was 
dark brought light with them. I observed that little 
children and many grown persons had a bright, glorious 
light around them, but many had a gloomy, dismal light 
and a dusky cloud over them.' " 

" Perhaps the glorified spirits of just men made perfect, 
may, like the angels, be employed in carrying on the pur- 
poses of God in the world. It is said of them, ' His serv- 
ants shall serve him.' " (Heb. 22.) 

"Possibly, as ministering spirits, they may minister unto 
the heirs of salvation, and watch over the interests of those 
who on earth were dear to them, either by the ties of nature 
or religion. One of them was employed to converse with 
the Apostle John and explain to him the wonderful things 
he saw in his visions." (Rev. 22.) 

" The sentiment for which we are pleading has the sanc- 
tion of the highest antiquity. Philo speaks of it as a re- 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 309 

ceived notion of the Jews that the souls of good men offi- 
ciate as ministering spirits. The Pagans, in the earliest 
ages, imagined that the spirits of their deceased friends 
continued near them, and were frequently engaged in per- 
forming acts of kindness, hence the deification of their 
kings and heroes, and the custom of invoking the names of 
those who were dear to them." 

" Cicero makes a better use of the doctrine, when he 
endeavors to comfort a father for the loss of a son by the 
thought that he might still be engaged in performing kind 
offices for him. And it is not improbable that the idea, 
though perverted by the heathen for the purpose of idolatry, 
might, like the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, be 
derived from a divine source." 

"A few years ago, a gentleman of most correct char- 
acter and serious carriage, who resided near St. James 
and lived very happily with his wife, was taken sick and 
died, which so effected his dear left companion that she 
sickened also and kept her bed. 

"In about ten days after her husband's death, as she 
was sitting upright in bed, and a friend and near rela- 
tion sitting near her, she looked steadfastly towards the 
foot of the bed, and said with a cheerful voice, ' My dear, 
I will be with you in two hours.' The gentlewoman 
that was with her (and who firmly attested the same 
as most true) said to her, ' Child, whom do you 
speak to?' (for she saw nobody). She answered, i It is 
my husband, who came to call me hence, and I am going 
to him ; ' which surprised her friend very much, who, 
thinking she was a little light headed, called in some one 
else, to whom she spoke very cheerfully and told the same 
story ; but before the two hours were expired she went on 



310 Universal Spiritualism 

and up to her dear companion, to be happy together 
forever, to the great surprise of all present. 

" The soul receives not its perfections or activity 
from the body, but can live and act out of the body ; yea, 
much better, having then its perfect liberty, divested 
of that heavy incumbrance which only clogged and fet- 
tered it. 'Doubtless,' saith Tertullian, 'when the soul 
is separated from the body it comes out of darkness into 
its own pure and perfect light, and quickly finds itself a 
substantial being, able to act freely in that light and par- 
ticipate in heavenly joys.' " 

The former historical references prove that the facts 
and the fundamental truths of Spiritualism were in re- 
motest antiquity similar to those of to-day. And why 
not ? — since there is but one God, one law, one Divine 
purpose, one historical continuity, one brotherhood, ' ' one 
spirit," with, as Paul says, " a diversity of gifts." 

A traveler in nearly all latitudes 'neath the northern 
star, or summering under the Southern Cross, I have seen 
neither races nor tribes, white, brown-skinned, or black, 
without sympathy for their kindred — without cemeteries 
for their dead — without altars, however rude, for their 
worship, and without dreams, apparitions, visions, and 
methods of some sort for communicating with the dead. 
Uncouth, vague, if not rude and vulgar to us, they may 
have been ; yet, they foreshadowed the soul's immortality, 
and brought to sorrowing, trusting souls, that piece of 
mind that passeth understanding. 

These spiritual marvels, natural to the plane from 
which they proceeded, have, through all periods of time, 
appeared as echoing openings from the silence, as lights 
from the mountain-tops, necesj&rijy assuming various 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 311 

forms, according to the period, the temperament, and 
racial development of a people. They were, and are, 
all in the line of evolution. They were, and are, God's 
living witnesses of a future existence. To deny them, to 
destroy them, is to plunge the world into the thickest 
darkness of materialism. 

The Spiritualism of this age was no modern in- 
vention of either spirits or mortals, but rather a discov- 
ery — the re-discovery, of a fact, or range of facts, in 
perfect accord with natural law. It did not spring into 
birth full grown, like Minerva from Jupiter's brain. It 
was seemingly feeble at first. It is youthful yet, when 
compared with Protestantism and its swarming sects. 
And yet, it is a-fire with truth, and a-flame with infinite 
possibilities. Atheistic materialists and sectarian priests 
might quite as well think of dethroning Divinity as of 
checking the onward march of Spiritualism. 

Christianity started from a dream (Matt. 1 : 20); Spir- 
itualism from a mystic rap. Angels and spirits were the 
potent powers behind them both. The mightiest results 
often follow from the minutest causes. Newton's falling 
apple pointed to that hidden law that holds suns and 
stars in their circling orbits. That little puff of steam 
from Watts' boiling kettle foretold of railways and 
steamers girdling the globe. How insignificant to proud, 
imperial Rome was that Babe cradled in a Bethlehem 
manger. And yet, there lay concealed mighty causes 
that in less than three hundred years shook the whole 
Roman Empire to its very foundations ; and later planted 
the Cross, symbol of life, upon the hills and mountains 
of every civilized land. So, those little half-muffled 
sounds, those gentle, telegraphic tickings that came to 



312 Universal Spiritualism 

Hydesville like messengers from the tear lands of the 
tombs, came to bring messages — messages of holiest 
memories. This was the Epiphany, the Easter morning 
of the thinking, stirring nineteenth century ! It was 
the golden dawn, the opening cycle of a newer and 
higher dispensation, ringing the death knell of a dreary 
materialism and a creedal, soul crushing sectarianism. 

In the Judsean dust-buried past, women were last at 
the cross . and first at the grave ; so, in this age, women 
— the Fox sisters — after hearing the sounds, were the 
first to discover the new alphabet — the first to translate 
those rappings into intelligent language, thus cabling the 
ocean of doubt, and bridging the chilling river of death, 
thereby enabling mortals and immortals to stand con- 
sciously face to face, re-clasping hands — the white hands 
of their dead — and reaffirming their undying loves and 
affections. As God is the soul, the spirit, interpermeating 
all nature, Spiritualism is necessarily naturalism. Nature 
is a divine unity. The chain of causes has no missing 
links. Law is as continuous as it is immutable. All the 
good of the old times remains. Principles never die; 
and so of human beings — there are no dead. The Spir- 
itualism of to-day has absolutely demonstrated this to be 
a fact. Shout, then, O ye nations, the song of triumph ; 
for Death, the King of Terrors, is conquered ! Creeds 
are doomed. The devil of mythology is defeated, and 
the fiery scarecrow, hell, is transfigured into lovely 
Gehenna gardens and vineyards, where purpling grapes 
grow in richest luxuriance just outside the walls of 
Jerusalem. 

A few years since I was in the Judaea of the ancient 
Scriptures — in old Bethlehem, near Jerusalem: and re- 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 313 

cently, on March 31, 1898, I was in the new Bethlehem, 
at Hydesville, near Rochester, N. Y. This has now be- 
come consecrated ground — consecrated and sacred to 
moral, mental, and spiritual science, to the brotherhood 
of races, to the immortality of divine truth, to the match- 
less grandeur and glories of a present angel ministry, and 
to a sweet converse with those higher, heavenly intelli- 
gencies that make radiant the highlands of immortality. 
Hydesville is America's Mecca. 

The philosophy of modern Spiritualism and the phi- 
losophy of Christianity during the first three centuries 
are in perfect accord. Spiritualists believe in God — a 
personal God, basing that personality, not upon form, or 
shape, or mere avoirdupois, but upon consciousness, in- 
telligence, will and purpose. They believe in Jesus 
Christ, accepting Peter's definition — " Jesus of Nazareth, 
a man approved of God among you by wonders, and mir- 
acles and signs, which God did by him." s Jesus' sym- 
pathetic character was certainly sweeter, diviner, than 
that of the masses of men. Angels daily walked and 
talked with him. Subordinating the earthly to the 
spiritual, fraternal love with him soon bloomed out into 
the universal. Quick to feel the sorrows of others, the 
sensitive tendrils of his loving heart, constantly attuned 
and tremulously responsive, vibrated to every sound of 
human suffering. He identified himself with sorrow 
and disgrace, with humanity in its lowest estate, that 
he might the more successfully exert the healing, sav- 
ing, love power of his soul in the redemption of the 
erring. 

Considered with reference to religious cycles, Jesus 
stood upon the pinnacle of Hebrew Spiritualism, the great 



314 Universal Spiritualism 

Judaean Spiritualist of that era. As God is Spirit — that 
is, the Infinite Spirit-presence acting by the law of me- 
diation — an apostle, with a singular clearness of percep- 
tion, pronounced the Nazarene a " Mediator " — that is, 
a "medium" — between God and men. The persecuted 
and martyred mediums of one age become gods in suc- 
ceeding ages. Such manifest the world's lack of both 
justice and wisdom. 

But if Jesus was only divine man, elder brother, 
wherein, then, you will perhaps inquire, consisted his 
moral superiority over others of that era? If I rightly 
understand his essential and peculiar characteristics, his 
preeminent greatness consisted in his fine harmonial 
organization ; in a constant overshadowing of angelic 
influences ; in the depth of his spirituality and love ; in 
the keenness of his moral perceptions ; in the expansive- 
ness and warmth of his sympathies ; in his unshadowed 
sincerity of heart ; in his deep schooling into the spiritual 
gifts of Essenian circles ; in his soul-pervading spirit of 
obedience to the mandates of right manifest in himself; 
in his unwearied, self-forgetting, self-sacrificing devotion 
to the welfare of universal humanity, and his perfect 
trust in God. 

The leading thoughts ever burning in his being for 
acceptance and actualization were in the divine Father- 
hood of God, the universal brotherhood of man, the per- 
petual ministry of angels and spirits, and the absolute 
necessity of toleration, charity, forgiveness, love — in a 
word, good works. These, crystalizing into action as a 
reform -force for human education and redemption, I de- 
nominate the positive religion, and consider it perfectly 
synonymous with Spiritualism — Spiritualism as a definition 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 315 

and practical power in its best and highest estate. This 
pure religion and undefiled, established in men's hearts 
and lives, and not on "sacred" parchments, would soon 
be felt in states and kingdoms, promoting peace, justice 
and charity ; rendering legal enactments wise and human- 
itarian, and causing the sweet waters of concord and 
good-will to flow over all the earth for the spiritual 
healing and moral uplifting of the nations. 

Few Spiritualists have yet reached the sublime altitudes 
of that positive or universal religion whose co-assistant is 
science, whose creed is freedom, whose psalm is love, and 
whose only prayer is holy work for human good. The 
best have not yet entered the vestibule of perfection. 
The ideal stretches afar in the golden distance. That 
there are extravagances, frauds, wild theories, and moral 
excrescences sheltering themselves under the wide-spread 
wing of Spiritualism, is freely admitted. This is com- 
mon in all new movements involving the activities of the 
emotional nature. Let only the sinless stone the erring. 
"Jesus," says the record, "came into the world not to 
condemn, but to save the world." Because the millennium 
has not dawned during this first phenomenal cycle of 
modern Spiritualism; because the temple with its inner 
glories is as yet only seen in vision ; because our fondest 
hopes are not realized, nor our lofty ideas attained, shall 
we go back to the beggarly elements of the world, and 
seek spiritual nourishment from rechewing old sectarian 
husks? Only in weakness and blindness does human 
nature seek a return to the flesh-pots of the past. If 
Spiritualists are not free, generous, tolerant, and prosper- 
ous ; if they are not above the level of the age in good 
works in order and fitness, in reform effort and general 



316 Universal Spiritualism 

culture ; if they are not the ready recipients of the freshest 
fruits of science and philosophy ; if they are not full- 
grown, harmonial men and women, the fault is not in 
Spiritualism, but in themselves. " Examine yourselves," 
was a good old apostolic injunction. Spiritualism can 
gain nothing by aping the ecclesiastical customs of other 
denominations. Awkward combinations are ever to be 
avoided. While it is true that master-builders are con- 
structionists, Spiritualism must never adopt any measures 
for cramping the unfolding intellect, nor strive to utter the 
shibboleth of any man-made form of faith ; for, in the 
introduction of this modern wave of Spiritualism upon 
earth, the angels of heaven purposed the formation of 
no new sect. Their aim, higher and holier, was to edu- 
cate, enlighten, and* spiritualize God's dear humanity. 

These are among the divine enunciations of that positive 
religion, based upon the immutable principles of justice, 
goodness, and human rights : 

God immanent and active in all things ; 

Man above all institutions ; 

The strict equality of the sexes. 

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the 
Father is this : to visit the fatherless and the widows 
in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the 
world." 

" Blessed are the pure in heart." 

"By this shall men know that ye are my disciples, if 
ye have loved one another." 

Self-abnegation being the first law of life, the highest 
good consists in aiding and doing good to others. 

"Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
foundation of the world; for I was an hungered and ye 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 317 

gave me meat ; thirsty, and ye gave me drink ; a stran- 
ger, and ye took me in ; naked, and ye clothed me ; 
sick, and ye visited me ; in prison, and ye came unto 
me. . . . Inasmuch as ye have done these things to 
the least of one of these my servants, ye have done them 
unto me." 

This is the religion of Jesus, the religion of the soul, 
the inborn religion of all men. Its witnesses have been 
the luminous suns and stars along the ages. When 
J. G. Whittier, accompanied by an English philanthropist, 
visited that eminent Unitarian, the Rev. Dr. Channing, 
for the last time in Rhode Island, their themes of con- 
versation were reform, progress, peace, toleration, and 
human sympathy. Whittier, referring to it afterwards, 
wrote these tender lines : 

? No bars of sect or clime were felt — 

The Babel strife of tongues had ceased 

And at one common altar knelt 
The Quaker and the Priest." 

Thus may, thus do, the hearts of the good and erudite 
ever blend in union. Such fellowship constitutes heaven 
upon earth. When the white feet of the venerable Will- 
iam Howitt pressed the sunny slopes of the summerland, 
the angels that make radiant the upper kingdoms of God 
did not inquire, " Were you on earth Catholic, Protestant, 
Spiritualist, Materialistic Spiritualist, or Christian Spirit- 
ualist? " but " Were you a true man, a lover of humanity, 
and a brother of mercy ? " " Then shall the King say, 
Come ye blessed of my Father." Love was the test of 
discipleship in Christ's time. Purity was and is the test 



gl 8 Universal Spiritualism 

of heavenly acceptance in all spheres of existence. 
Listen : 

11 Lovest thou me ? " 

"Love is the fulfilling of the law." 

" Love worketh no ill to its neighbor." 

" If ye love me keep my commandments." 

" Not every one that saith Lord, Lord ! shall enter 
into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of 
my Father who is in heaven." 

If you cannot walk peaceably and religiously with your 
brother, good reader, go your own way, kindly leaving 
the road. Heaven, as London, may be reached from 
different directions. 

Made subject to vanity, experimenting and journeying 
through the world of shadows, all need the staff of 
prayer and the lamp of faith — need to feel that God is a 
constant presence ; that Christ is the light of truth ; and 
that loving angels are waiting to minister to our spiritual 
wants. A life without love and trust, even if it be of 
the strictest morality, or of a continual ascetic struggle 
after Divine communion, will never bring the individual 
really into the Inner Temple. Little children symbolize 
the receptivities of the heavenly life. The humble heart, 
sheltered from the storms of passion, and all vestured 
with the fragrant blossoms of sweet human affections, is 
often nearer in spirit to the angels than the cold 
philosopher. Love inspires, wisdom guides, faith opens 
the gate, and self-sacrifice leads the way into the City 
of Peace — the City of God. Oh, come, let us worship in 
this temple of Spiritualism— this temple of eternal religion 
—a temple whose foundations are deep and wide as the 
nature of 'man, and whose dome, reaching into the heaven 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 319 

of heavens, shall shelter and overshadow the races with 
millennial glory. 

When genuine Spiritualism — the universal religion of 
love — shadowed in twilight by Indian sages, seen in in- 
creasing sunlight by Syrian seers, and consciously felt 
to-day by the more highly-inspired — becomes actualized 
in and out wrought through the personal lives of earth's 
surging millions, it will no longer be selfishly said, 
"Mine, mine," but " Ours, yours, all who appropriate it 
for holy uses." Then our country will be the universe, 
our home the world, and our rest wherever a human 
heart beats in sympathy with our own, and the highest 
happiness of each will be found to consist in aiding and 
blessing others. Then will the soil be as free for all to 
cultivate as the air they breathe; gardens will blossom 
and bear fruit for the most humble ; orphans will find 
homes of tenderest sympathy in all houses ; the tanned 
brows of toiling millions will be wreathed with the white 
roses of peace ; and the great family of humanity will be 
obedient to and trust in love, law, liberty — God ! In 
holiest fellowship with Jesus and the angels, with loved 
and loving spirits, and upon the tender bosom of the 
Infinite, is my soul's rest forever ! 

Probably the best medium that graced the nineteenth 
century was W. Stainton Moses. Educated at Oxford, 
and for a time connected with London University College, 
he was a clairvoyant, trance, clairaudient, automatic- 
writing medium. His mediumistic superiority consisted 
largely in living a good life and adding to his medium- 
ship culture and scholarship. He was for years editor of 
London Light, pages of his automatic writings appearing 
in its columns. Honored by his friendship, I take pleasure 



320 Universal Spiritualism 

in presenting the following communications from his spirit- 
friend " Imperator " : 

"It is part of our mission to teach the religion of the 
body as well as of the soul. We proclaim to you and to 
all that due care of the body is an essential prerequisite 
to the progress of the soul. Jesus was a physician to 
both body and soul. Man has gradually built around 
the teachings of Jesus a wall of deduction, speculation, 
and material comment similar to that with which the 
Pharisees had surrounded the Mosaic law. It is our 
task to do for Christianity what Jesus did for Judaism. 
We would take the old forms and spiritualize their mean- 
ings and infuse into them new life. Resurrection rather 
than abolition is what we desire. We say again that we 
would not abolish one jot or tittle of the teachings which 
the Christ gave to the world. We do but wipe away 
man's material gloss and show you the hidden spiritual 
meaning which he has missed. 

"This was the mission of Christ. He claimed for 
himself that fulfilment of the law, not its abolition or 
abrogation, was his intent. He pointed out the truth 
which was at the root of the Mosaic commandment. He 
stripped off the rags of pharisaical ritual, the glosses of 
rabbinical speculation, and laid bare the divine truth 
which was beneath all, the grand principles divinely in- 
spired which man has nearly buried. He was not only a 
religious but a social reformer, and the grand business 
of his life was to elevate the people, spirit and body ; to 
expose pretenders, and to strip off the mask of hypocrisy ; 
to take the foot of the despot from the neck of the 
struggling slave, and make man free by virtue of that 
truth which he came from God to declare. 'Ye shall 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 321 

know the truth,' he told his followers, 'and the truth shall 
make you free; and ye shall be free indeed.' 

" He reasoned of life and death 'and eternity ; of the true 
nobility and dignity of man's nature; of the way to pro- 
gressive knowledge of God. He came as the Great Ful- 
filler of the law; the man who showed, as never man 
showed before, the end for which the law was given — the 
amelioration of humanity. He taught men to look into 
the depths of their hearts, to test their lives, to try their 
motives and to weigh all they did by one ascertained bal- 
ance — the fruits of life as the test of religion. He told 
men to be humble, merciful, truthful, pure, self-denying, 
honest in heart and intent ; and he set before them a living 
example of the life which he preached. 

" He was the great social reformer, whose object was at 
least as much to benefit man corporeally, and to reveal to 
him a salvation from bigotry, selfishness, and narrow-mind- 
edness in this life, as it was to reveal glimpses of a better 
life in the hereafter. He preached the religion of daily 
life, the moral progress of the spirit in the path of daily 
duty forward to a higher knowledge. Repentance for the 
past, amendment and progress in the future, summed up 
most of his teaching. He found a world buried in igno- 
rance, at the mercy of an unscrupulous priesthood in mat- 
ters religious ; under the absolute sway of a tryant in mat- 
ters political. He taught liberty in both. He labored to 
show the dignity of man. He would elevate him to the 
true dignity of the truth — the truth which should make 
him free. He was no respecter of persons. He chose his 
apostles and associates from the mean and poor. He lived 
among the common people ; of them, with them, in their 
homes, teaching the simple lessons of truth which they 



322 Universal Spiritualism 

needed, and which they could receive. He went but little 
among those whose eyes were blinded by the mists of or- 
thodoxy, respectability, or so-called human wisdom. He 
fired the hearts of his listeners with a yearning for some- 
thing nobler, better, higher, than they yet possessed, and 
he told them how to get it. 

" The gospel of humanity is the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
It is the only gospel that man needs ; the only one that can 
reach his wants and minister to his necessities. ' ' 

We continue to preach the same evangel. By commis- 
sion from the same God, by authority from the same source, 
do we come now as apostles of this heaven-sent gospel. 
We declare truths, the same as Jesus taught. We 
preach, through this medium, his gospel, purified from the 
glosses and misinterpretations which man has gathered 
around it. We would spiritualize that which man has hid- 
den under the heap of materialism. 

"I inquired," said Stainton Moses, "whether I rightly 
understood that the work of teaching, a section of which is 
under the direction of Imperator, derived its mission from 
Christ." 

" You understand aright. I have before said that I de- 
rive my mission, and am influenced in my work, by a spirit 
who has passed beyond the spheres of work into the higher 
heaven of contemplation. . . . Jesus Christ is now 
arranging his plans for the gathering of his people, for the 
further revelation of the truth as well as for the purging 
away of the erroneous beliefs which have accumulated in 
the past. 

"This is the second coming — a coming in power and 
glory — a coming of ministering angels and spirits — a com- 
ing to morally and spiritually enlighten all conscious intel- 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 323 

ligences. It is the overshadowing return of the living 
Christ. There will be no such personal return as theolo- 
gians have taught. This will be, and is, the spiritual re- 
turn to his people, by the voice of his messengers speaking 
to those whose ears are open ; even as he said, ' He that 
hath ears to hear, let him hear ; and he that is able to re- 
ceive it, let him receive it.' " 

Spiritualism is the opposite of, and strongly antagonistic 
to, materialism. When scientists talk of the potencies in 
matter, of co-relations and polarities, they are talking all 
unwittingly of spirit ; for all potency as a finality belongs 
to the almost incomprehensible realm of Spirit, which is a 
factor in every phenomenon of nature, and is essential to 
the ascertainment and record of every natural law ; and the 
knightly champions of science are just beginning to under- 
stand it. 

The Kosmos is a unity, threefold in manifestation. Sub- 
stance is the One, the All Spirit, Soul, matter ! We are 
spirits now — spirits vestured in material, everchanging sub- 
stances. We are spirits with souls vibrating in touch with 
the Universal Soul — with Immortality. A man can no 
more help being immortal than the buds can help unfold- 
ing and blowing beneath spring's refreshing showers and 
the sun's genial rays. Who that has drunk from this foun- 
tain of eternal life — who that has held an hour's commun- 
ion with departed loved ones does not say to the world, " I 
am glad, oh ! so glad, that I am a Spiritualist ! " And 
who does not say, "Blessed, ever blessed be this divine 
truth of Spiritualism ! ' ' 

Spiritualists ! the eyes of the civilized world and of the 
angels above are upon you ! Conduct yourselves, then, 
like men. So guide your barques that, though they 



324 Universal Spiritualism 

flounder in the tempestuous seas of temptation, they may- 
soon right themselves for a better, safer, voyage. Live to- 
day for to-morrow, for eternity. Be above the commission 
of an unworthy act ; indulge in no ignoble insinuations ; 
take no selfish advantages of the weaknesses of your fellow 
men ; sacrifice coveted comforts for the good of others ; 
seek no praise nor fulsome flattery ; intrigue for no office; 
partake of the bread of honest labor only ; administer re- 
proof in gentleness and love ; forgive as you would be for- 
given ; be kind to the poor, the unfortunate, the sick, the 
dying ; live to lift them to higher planes of health and 
happiness; live to brighten the chain of human friend- 
ships ; live to educate mind, heart, and soul for the realiza- 
tion of a heaven on earth ; plant gardens of love in 
unhappy bosoms ; scatter gems of good will and roses of 
kindness along your daily walks of life ; think only good 
thoughts, and ever welcome the angels to your hearts and 
to your souls as the loved messengers of God. These are 
the teachings and principles of practical Spiritualism. 

The above magnificent address is presented to our 
readers as a splendid example of the attitude taken to life 
in general by the most widely traveled of all American 
Spiritualists, the venerable and gracious " Spiritual Pil- 
grim." 

During Dr. Peebles' third trip around the world, he 
studied and noted the laws, customs and religions of 
nations and peoples, giving special attention to Spiritual- 
ism, Magic, Theosophy, and reform movements. He 
visited Ceylon, India, Persia, Egypt, Syria, and the conti- 
nent of Europe, and secured much material, which has 
been embodied in a large octavo volume, containing thirty- 



Spiritualism in All Lands and Times 325 

five chapters, and treating on the following subjects : 
Home Life in California ; My third Voyage ; The Sand- 
wich Islands ; The Pacific Island Races ; Ocean bound to- 
wards Aukland, New Zealand, Melbourne, Australia ; From 
New Zealand Onward ; A series of Spiritual Seances upon 
the Ocean ; The Chinese Orient ; Chinese Religions and In- 
stitutions ; Cochin China to Singapore ; Malacca to India ; 
Spiritual Seances on the Indian Ocean ; India : Its History 
and Treasures ; India's Religions, Morals, and Social 
Characteristics; The Rise of Buddhism in India; The 
Brahmo-Somaj and Parsees; Spiritualism in India; From 
India to Arabia; Aden and the Arabs; The City of Cairo, 
Egypt ; Egypt's Catacombs and Pyramids ; Appearance of 
the Egyptians ; Study of the Pyramids ; Sight of the Great 
Pyramids ; Ancient Science in Egypt ; Astronomy 
of the Egyptians ; From Alexandria to Joppa and Jerusa- 
lem ; the City of Joppa ; City of Prophets and Apostles ; 
Jesus and Jerusalem ; Present Gospels ; the Christianity of 
the Ages ; Plato and Jesus in contrast ; Turkey in Asia ; 
Ionia and the Greeks ; Athens ; Europe and its Cities ; 
Ceylon and its Buddhists ; the India of To-day ; Hindoo 
Doctrines of the Dead ; the Mediterranean Sea ; Egypt 
and Antiquity. Price, $1.50. 

Dr. Peebles' address is Battle Creek, Michigan, where 
his highly valuable works are published. 



CHAPTER XXII 

DR. J. M. PEEBLES ON THE NATURE AND 
PREEXISTENCE OF THE SOUL 

Non Mi Ricordo. " I do not remember.'' Granted — 
but that. does not disprove an eternal past existence. You 
do not remember your past foetal life, nor your nine months 
placenta life; nor do you remember your baby life, 
nor your early childhood life. But this counts for noth- 
ing against your existence during all these periods. You 
nevertheless have access to an ample amount of evi- 
dence that your existence traversed all these stages — 
evidence that your personality was prior to your conscious 
memory of it. Because this inmost spirit cannot project 
itself through its clumsy, clayish environment into the ex- 
ternal with sufficient vividness to remember the past and 
express it, is no evidence that the individualized spirit did 
not exist. Non-existence is unthinkable. And yet think- 
ing is as natural as breathing. Only circles are endless. 
All beginnings in time and space necessarily have their 
endings. A creature which has its beginning in time is 
incapable of perpetuating itself or being perpetuated through 
eternity. A line projected from a point in space has a 
further limit which no logic can carry to infinitude. 
Whether or not "God geometrizes," that cannot be mor- 
ally and physiologically false which is mathematically true. 
Though on different planes of thought morals and mathe- 
matics harmonize. The universe is not a dual-verse of 
infinite inharmonies. 

326 



Nature and Preexistence of the Soul 327 

I may here remark that two fundamental assumptions 
lie at the threshold of man's introduction into this world. 
The first is, that his subjective existence antedates his 
objective appearance. That as an ego he is coexistent 
with the universe, and participates in that universal and 
eternal life which is perpetually manifest in the kosmos. 

The second assumption, is that man as to his essential 
form or personality is derivative ; that his earliest intro- 
duction into the world and the universe is when he is born 
of a physical mother ; that his conscious entity is depend- 
ent upon and dates its beginning with the visible appear- 
ance of the physical organism. According to this assump- 
tion the material atoms and forces which have transiently 
converged in the human organism, with no promise of 
anything more than a limited persistence, were once con- 
glomerated with the cosmic mass as a portion of its undif- 
ferentiated substance. And this derivative hypothesis 
further assumes that the purpose of this single birth is to 
specialize a portion of the organizable pabulum of the 
general kosmos into human shape, that it may manifest the 
attributes of self-consciousness. The personality is coex- 
istent with this body organism, commenced its existence 
with it, and must have its share in its vicissitudes and final 
destruction. Is it surprising that such a materialistic 
philosophy should yield its abundant crop of atheists ? 

With the wisest of the Greek philosophers, diversity, 
individuality, was as fundamental as unity ; but with our 
modern scientists, individuality is purely derivative. The 
Darwinian school of writers assume that our world and 
solar system, together with the kingdoms of life, nay, even 
the genius of Homer, Raphael and Shakespeare were once 
latent in a fiery cloud. All specific forms, say they, came 



328 Universal Spiritualism 

by development, they arose by insensible modifications 
wrought in an originally homogeneous substance. That 
also was the philosophy of certain ancient Hindoos. . That 
was the philosophy of Spinoza. That, too, is the philosophy 
of Herbert Spencer and of Darwin's disciples. Darwin's 
qualification to the effect that God originally, and, I may 
add, miraculously, created a few germs, as a basis from 
which to evolve future distinctions and organic formations, 
does not redeem his theory from that pantheistic conception 
which is its very root and essence. And what is more, it 
is the pantheism of materialism. 

Spinoza and the pantheistic philosophers of India taught 
in harmony with the logical implications of their philosophy. 
They were materialists. Inasmuch as types, or essential 
forms, with them, were not coexistent with substance, but 
effects, or derivative results, consequent upon the differ- 
entiation and integration of substance ; so these beginnings 
necessitated endings. Forms were ephemeral. Their des- 
tiny was to suffer resolution into the primitive substance. 

Future immortality implies a preexistent, or past im- 
mortality. And the attempt to reconcile man's future 
immortality with Darwinism is much like Hugh Miller's 
effort to reconcile geology and Genesis. It seems clear to 
me, that if a protoplastic formation originated, evolved and 
built up essential man, involving the personal identity, it 
may, and necessarily must, by the law of involution, return 
again to protoplasm. 

It was precisely upon this point that Agassiz took issue 
with Darwin. The former held with Plato that ideas and 
ultimate forms were coexistent with substance. He taught 
that they had a spiritual basis, antedating their material 
embodiments. It is not sufficient to say that man existed 



Nature and Preexistence of the Soul 329 

in essence before he became a personal identity. If that 
identity was produced, if it be a result, an effect, conse- 
quent upon molecular action, or material change, then no 
"key-stone" in the arch-way of organization will insure 
that identity from final resolution into that " fiery cloud " 
in which Tyndal informs us the genius of Raphael and 
Shakespeare were once latent. 

Individuals favoring the Darwinian school of materialism 
and believing derivative personality ask for facts in proof 
of preexistence, by which they doubtless mean facts ad- 
dressed to the perceptive intellect. But I submit that facts 
of the sensuous order are quite incompetent to prove or 
disprove truths which address themselves to the highest 
reason. To me the facts of consciousness and intuition 
are more authoritative and imperial than those appealing 
to the fallible senses. 

Scholars, thinkers and metaphysicians of all schools 
recognize three orders of evidence which may be com- 
petent to influence the judgment. 

1. Evidence addressed to the senses. 

2. Evidence addressed to the conscious understanding. 

3. Evidence addressed to the higher reason in the 
form of axioms and intuitions. 

The demand for facts of external observation in proof 
of those higher truths of relation and of consciousness 
which can only be apprehended by the higher reason, will 
not be gratified, at least, in the present condition of hu- 
manity. The problem of preexistence is included in the 
provinces of mental science, metaphysics and religion, 
rather than in that of the physical sciences. Science may 
afford important aid by revealing the laws of movement ; 
but its sphere being limited to the order and sequence of 



33° Universal Spiritualism 

phenomena, it can never reveal the nature of things in 
themselves. I have no expectation that the problem of 
man's first estate will ever have any clear light thrown 
upon it by recourse to such data as material science will be 
able to furnish, for it involves an ultimate ground that lies 
beyond the pale of experimental research. A strong pre- 
sumptive evidence in favor of the truth of a proposition is 
to be found in the extent of its diffusion and in the degree 
of its persistence. This is an axiomatic truth with Herbert 
Spencer.' Now the belief in the soul's preexistence — the 
belief in God and the immortality of man have survived 
the rise and fall of empires, thrones and races. Nor has 
modern enlightenment succeeded in driving them into the 
dreamy haunts of superstition, but it has welcomed, ex- 
tended and fortified these beliefs. They may be accepted, 
therefore, as foreshadowing, or rather, as the synonyms of 
ultimate verities. 

I believe the Soul to be an eternal entity, or unit from 
eternity. The Soul is immortal and has its state of 
being within God. The Soul is absolute. Nothing 
can be taken from it or added to it. Its manifesta- 
tions in time proceed from sources that are within. 
The Soul in its quality is like unto God. It is a Ray 
which proceeds from God as a central sun. Its being 
is in God, yet it is not God. The essential nature of God 
cannot be communicated through the medium of human 
speech, for it is only known within the Soul. Knowledge 
proceeds from the known to the unknown. Revelation 
proceeds from the unknown to the known. The conscious- 
ness of the universe is God ; the consciousness of man is 
the soul. The soul is the only preexisting entity except 
God, having its being in eternity and its existence in time. 



Nature and Pre existence of the Soul 331 

Existing in time the soul is subject to limitations, but God 
is the Absolute Being transcending all limitations. The 
soul is a complete circle, having neither beginning nor end- 
ing. God is the sphere in which the circle is repeated to 
infinity. But while the soul abides in the Infinite it is 
never lost therein. There are no new souls added to the 
universe ; none taken therefrom. The soul in its primal 
nature does not exist in time or space, but in eternity. 
Only its movements or manifestations fall within the 
province of time and space. 

It will hence be seen that the soul in its first estate is a 
purely subjective being in the human form. In this primal 
state it embodies all the attributes and qualities which we 
can conceive of as embraced in the kosmos. It "is in 
little all the sphere." It is Plato's " One and Many " — a 
unity in which is embraced a multitude. All numbers, 
forms and series inhere in this microcosmic entity. Love 
and Wisdom are the substance and form of its existence. 
Love is its substance and the subjective ground of its being. 
Wisdom is its form of existence and quality of limitation 
that distinguishes it from all other human entities. Viewed 
in one aspect the infinite multitude of souls in the universe 
form one complex and unitary body, each sharing the same 
divine qualities with his fellow, which is the ground of 
their sociality. But viewed in another aspect, souls pre- 
sent an infinite diversity, no two being alike, no two pre- 
destined to perform identical offices. Thus all souls co- 
here in one social solidarity by virtue of the principle of 
Love which inheres alike in each. And then again each 
soul is a Form per se, distinguished from all other souls 
by virtue of its principle of Wisdom or quality of limita- 
tion v Hence each soul is endowed with a specialty of 



33 2 Universal Spiritualism 

genius which qualifies it for a particular function and form 
of service, as a unit in an affiliated series of the Societary 
Man. But before the soul can become equipped to con- 
sciously serve in its predestined place in the universe, it 
must perfect for itself a Body Form through which it can 
fully express its subjective wealth of faculty. This Body 
Form will be the final summing-up of the Soul's pilgrim- 
ages in matter. But this branch of the subject I will leave 
for discussion in my second paper of this series. 

" A keel grated on the sand, 
Then a step was on the shore — 
Life awoke and heard it, 
A hand was laid upon her, 
And a great shudder passed through her. ' 
She looked up, and saw over her 
The strange, wide eyes of Love, 
And Life knew for whom 
She had been waiting, 
And Love drew Life up to him, 
And of that meeting was born 
A thing rare and beautiful — 
Joy, First Joy was it called." 

— Olive Schreinrer. 

Identity has a deeper ground than the material shape 
which we associate with the human body. It is far deeper 
than the trend given to character through the laws of he- 
redity, having its basis in the self-conscious ego. True, 
the body to some extent is a mirror or reflection of the real 
identity, but is neither its cause nor ground of permanence. 
The body is an aggregation of ever fluctuating molecules. 
Its entire structure is changed at least once in seven years, 
and the brain, nerves and glands are changed several times 
within that period. I repeat, our identity is in the soul 



Nature and Preexistence of the Soul 333 

and not in the organic structure. It is in the realm of mind 
and not in the realm of matter. Hence our identity is not 
a residuum — a something left over when the material body 
is cast aside. It is not a ghost or shadow which the or- 
ganism has bequeathed to the man, but a persistent form 
having only a temporary residence in the body which body 
is the real shadow or ephemeral appearance. 

Individuality in its primal meaning is monadic existence. 
The Latin Individuus is the opposite of Dividuus. It em- 
braces that which cannot be further dissected. It signifies 
the being a one. We are here brought back to what I said 
above regarding the nature of the soul, namely : That by 
virtue of its wisdom -principle the soul is a form per se y 
and distinguished from all other souls by its quality of 
limitation. Individuality is single — the unit distinguished 
from all other units and from the total aggregate of units. 
Therefore each individual soul, in its primal estate is en- 
dowed with a specialty of genius which qualifies it for a 
particular place and function in the universe. 

Personality in its common and outward acceptation is 
usually associated with appearance and outward character ; 
but with such writers as Emerson, James Freeman Clarke, 
Frohschammer, Elisha Mulford, Lotze, etc., Personality 
has a far deeper meaning. The Latins used Persona to 
signify personating, counterfeiting, or wearing a mask. 
But Personality in the sense in which Emerson employs it, 
signifies true being, both concrete and spiritual. It alone 
is original being. It is not limited. Personality is that 
universal element that pervades every human soul and 
which is at once its continent and ground of being. Dis- 
tinction from others and limitations by them results from 
Individuality, not Personality. 



334 Universal Spiritualism 

Elisha Mulford says: "There is in personality the 
highest that is within the knowledge of man. It is the 
steepest, loftiest summit towards which we move in our 
attainment." 

Emerson says: "The personal within man is the soul 
of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to 
which every part and particle is equally related. . . . 
The personal is not an organ, not a function, not a faculty, 
it is the background of our being — an immensity not pos- 
sessed and that cannot be possessed." 

We are here again brought back to what was said above, 
that all souls cohere in one social solidarity by virtue of 
the principle of Love which inheres alike in each. Per- 
sonality therefore pertains to the substance of the soul and 
individuality to its form. 

The magi of Persia, the priests of Egypt, the Brahmans 
of India, and Buddhists of the East, each and all held to 
some form of the general doctrine. Jesus recognized his 
own preexistence when he spoke of the "glory he had 
with the Father before the world was." Again he said: 
" Before Abraham was I am." 

Ammonius Saccas, founder of that school of eclectic 
philosophy known as New Platonism, and among whose 
disciples were Longinus, and Origen, was a believer of pre- 
existence. 

Plotinus, an eminent Greek philosopher, an adept in the 
doctrines of the Oriental sages, and a teacher of philosophy 
at Rome from 645 a. d., until his death, was an advocate 
of preexistence. 

Proclus, a student of Olympiodorus at Alexandria, and 
of Plutarchus at Athens, and for a time at the head of the 
New Platonic schools, believed in preexistence. 



Nature and Preexistence of the Soul 335 

Apollonius of Tyanna, a Pythagorean philosopher of the 
first century, venerated for his wisdom by his contempo- 
raries, and whose thrillingly interesting life was written by 
Flavius Philostratus, was a believer in and teacher of pre- 
existence. 

Many of the most enlightened minds of all countries 
have taught that man's conscious self-hood is as much a 
matter of the past as it is to be of the future. Pythagoras, 
the founder of the Italic school of Greek philosophy, pro- 
fessed to have a distinct remembrance of a previous life or 
lives. 

Plato believed that all the knowledge of laws and princi- 
ples we seem to acquire in this world is simply a recovery 
or reminiscence of knowledge which the soul possessed in 
a previous state of existence. Readers of Plato will re- 
member the reference to "Meno," where Plato introduces 
Socrates as making an experiment, by way of putting a 
series of questions to a slave of Meno, eliciting from the 
uneducated youth a geometrical truth. This done, Socrates 
triumphantly observed to Meno, " I have not taught the 
youth anything; but simply interrogating him, he recalled the 
knowledge he had in a previous existence. ' ' Plato further 
taught that all ideas, types and ultimate forms both pre- 
cede and succeed their material embodiments. 

"Our soul," says Plato, " is a particle of the Divine 
Breath, and therefore we are related to God. Our soul's 
divine ideas are natural, and are created by the contem- 
plation of divine things. Before it was associated with 
the body, it existed in God ; even now, though enveloped 
by the body, it may participate in that divine contempla- 
tion through the subjection of the passions, and through a 
contemplative life." 



336 Universal Spiritualism 

In the song of Amosis we read : " Lord thou hast been 
our dwelling-place in all generations ; before the mountains 
were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth 
and the world." 

The most learned among the Christian fathers, such as 
Origen, added to the doctrine of preexistence, the doctrine 
of Brahminical reincarnation, contending that souls having 
sinned in their previous lives were condemned to reenter 
human bodies in this mortal life to expiate their former 
guilt. • 

Jerome (340 a. d.) said of the above dogma which 
prevailed in India and Egypt: "This impious and 
wicked doctrine was anciently diffused through Egypt and 
the East, and now prevails in the secret, as in vipers' 
nests, among most, and pollutes the purity of those regions ; 
and as by a hereditary disease glides in the few to pervade 
the many." 

Clemens of Alexandria, in his Eclogues, advocated the 
soul's preexistence, but stoutly denied the doctrine of re- 
incarnation — and re-reincarnation of human souls. He 
contended that the passage : " There was a man sent 
from God" meant that the soul of John the Baptist was 
older than his body, and was sent from his former state. 

Clement of the second century, educated in the Pla- 
tonic philosophy, and afterwards a disciple of Pantenus in 
Alexandria, said : "Do we not love God this first, that we 
exist, that we are said to be men ? That descending from 
the regions of light, or sent by Him, we are held in these 
corporeal bodies." 

Pamphilas, who established a flourishing school in Csesa- 
rea, who vindicated Origen in five books, and was martyred 
309 a. d., was a strong advocate of the soul's preexistence. 



Nature and Preexistence of the Soul 337 

"Does matter create the soul?" he asked. "The house 
resembles the idea that preceded it, and the entrance by a 
path from the mountains resembles the descent of souls 
from heaven to their lodgment in bodies." 

Synesius, a Neo-Platonic philosopher and disciple of 
Hypatia at Alexandria, wrote largely in favor of preexist- 
ence. When the citizens of Ptolemais had invited him 
to the bishopric among them, he declined that dignity, in 
a letter to his brother on the subject, for this reason among 
others, that he cherished certain opinions which perhaps 
all would not approve, but which he could in no wise ab- 
jure, as after mature reflection they had struck their roots 
deep in his mind. First among these he mentioned the 
doctrine of preexistence. < ' Assuredly I can never think 
it right to believe the soul an after-birth of the body." 
Vestiges of this belief are openly discernible in his writings, 
as, for example, in the hymn of which the following is a 
paraphrase : 

" Eternal Mind, thy seedling spark 
Through this thin vase of clay, 
Athwart the waves of chaos dark 
Emits a timorous ray ! 

" Far forth from thee, thou central fire, 
To earth's sad bondage cast, 
Let not the trembling spark expire — 
Absorb thine own at last ! " 

The do* rine of the soul's preexistence was held by the 
Jews, both before and cotemporary with the Apostolic 
period. It as certainly held by the later Jews living after 
the times of e Babylonish captivity. Among their proofs 
they quote th from the Book of Wisdom : 



338 Universal Spiritualism 

"I was an ingenuous child, and received a good soul; 
nay more, being good, I came into a body undented." 

Writing of the Essenes, Josephus says : " For the opinion 
obtains among them (the Essenes) that bodies indeed are 
corruptible, and the matter of them not permanent; but 
that souls continue exempt from death forever ; and that, 
emanating from the most subtle ether, they are enfolded 
in bodies, as prisons, to which they are drawn by some 
natural spell. But, when loosened from the bonds of the 
flesh, as if released from a long captivity, they rejoice, 
and are borne upward. . . . This company of dis- 
embodied souls is distributed in different orders. The 
law of some of them is to enter mortal bodies, and, 
after certain prescribed periods, be again set free. But 
those possessed of a diviner structure are absolved from all 
local bonds of earth." 

Leibnitz, the most profound philosopher of the seven- 
teenth century, held the doctrine of preexistence as one of 
his cardinal beliefs. And to-day, in the full blaze of 
scientific discovery, there are hosts of men famous for their 
knowledge of the sciences, and eminent in religious culture, 
who believe in a preexistent state of conscious existence. 
Among these are Prof. Redfield, the author and distin- 
guished physiognomist ; Charles and Edward Beecher, lately 
departed to the higher life; G. Groom Napier and Sir 
Thompson of England. 

Nearly the whole body of French Spiritualists, includ- 
ing such men as Figuer and Camille Flamarion, the 
astronomer, hold to the doctrine. The great Fourier 
taught it. The Spiritualists of the Orient, and, to a very 
large extent of Continental Europe, accept it. 

Conscious communion with spirits, not proving immor- 



Nature and Preexistence of the Soul 339 

tality in the sense of endless existence, does prove a con- 
scious existence after death. And then, those long inhab- 
iting the better land of angelic blessedness, that is to say, 
ancient spirits almost uniformly teach preexistence. I 
cannot this moment call to mind a case to the contrary. 
It is admitted that spirits of the spirit world differ upon 
this subject ; and further, that the testimony of spirits is 
authoritative only so far as it corresponds with intuition and 
the highest reason. Still, the persistence of an idea and 
the potency of intelligent majorities necessarily influ- 
ence convictions. And I am certain that the general 
tenor of the teachings of wise and highly intelligent spirits 
upon this subject favors a preexistent state of being. Aaron 
Knight, two hundred years in spirit life, and whose iden- 
tity I took the pains to establish when in England several 
years since, teaches, with the " brotherhood of ancient 
sages," preexistence in the most positive manner. 

It is very clear to profound thinkers that once in exist- 
ence as divine man, always in existence. The converse is 
equally true ; once absolutely out of existence never in ex- 
istence ! This logical bulwark has never been successfully 
assailed. 

In the phrase, once in existence, always in existence, I 
am referring to conscious, or rather to divine man, and 
not to sticks and stones, nor to growling animals and sting- 
ing insects. These are fragments — imperfect structures — 
unfinished temples. And no one gifted with intelligence 
speaks of a conscious rock — a divine wolf, or a righteous 
dog. These are not, and never were in existence as con- 
sciously rational and morally progressive beings. They 
have not the Spiritual Keystone. They are not religious ; 
neither are they conscious of their subordinate conscious- 



34-0 Universal Spiritualism 

ness ! And certainly, no logician ever affirms of a part, 
what he does of a whole. A slice, slashed from a golden 
orange, thin, irregular, ill-shaped and seedless, is not equal 
to, nor should it be compared with the well-rounded 
orange. Animals, serpents, and noxious insects, are but 
parts, bearing the same relation to man that passing 
thoughts bear to ideas, or shadows to substances. Animals 
and insects were never in existence, as perfect structures, 
as divine entities ; but rather as fleeting organisms serving 
temporary uses. 

Divinity is eternal. An essential man is constituted ac- 
cording to Plato, of divine substance, form and germ ; and 
further, with this prince of thinkers, essential forms, types 
and ideas, were the same. Types, or ideas, in fact, were 
subjective realities. Outworked they became partially vis- 
ible. Still, the type preceded and succeeded the visible 
appearance. The material contents of form as in the oak 
or animal, are fleeting, changing ; but the hidden essential 
form, which is the type, or idea is enduring and im- 
mortal. 

Every argument against preexistence, is so far as entitled 
to the name, an argument against the immortality of the 
soul, and a help to cold combative materialists. And 
materialism, in its last analysis amounts to this — a sprawl- 
ing puppy and a royal souled sage — a beefsteak, a prayer- 
book, and a divine soul, are all the same originally — atoms 
— protoplastic atoms, adjusted and arranged for specific 
aims and ends by non-designed and non-intelligent molec- 
ular force. And so all conscious life — all noble aspira- 
tions for eternal unfoldment — begin and necessarily end in 
matter. A stream cannot rise above its fountain. Thank 
God and the good angels, Spiritualism, in connection with 



Nature and Preexistence of the Soul 341 

the rational doctrine of preexistence, saves from the slough 
of despond. 

If the sum total constituting J. M. Peebles were once ab- 
solutely out of existence, putting him into existence would 
be equivalent to creating something from nothing. I am a 
firm believer in the soul's eternal preexistence. The theory 
is the rational stronghold of the soul's immortality. But 
preexistence and reincarnation are by no means identical. 
They are not predicated on the same philosophical basis. 
And any writer who confounds these exhibits either his ig- 
norance, or his pitiable impudence. 

Of the doctrine of reincarnation I am not convinced — 
and yet, am open to investigation and arguments in its favor. 

Only a few can clearly recall events and experiences oc- 
curring in a preexistent state of being. Many did, how- 
ever, in the more meditative past. And some in the pres- 
ent can do this ; and their testimony upon the point is di- 
rect and positive. I have space to name but a few. 

Judge Boardman, well known in Wisconsin for many 
years as a thoughtful, influential Spiritualist, repeatedly as- 
sured me that he could distinctly remember many things 
that transpired in his preexistent life. 

Judge Elliott, quite as much of a mathematician as jurist, 
used to interest his friends by similar direct statements. 

Harold Harring, the Polish scholar, author and personal 
friend of Dr. Redfield, the New York physiognomist, often 
affirmed in the most positive manner, that he could remem- 
ber many acts and events occurring in his preexistent home 
in the heavens. Others testify to the same facts. Preex- 
istence is to them positive knowledge. Negative testimony 
upon this subject is of little account. That blind men do 
not see the sun is their misfortune — nothing more. 



342 Universal Spiritualism 

Theodore Parker said in Music Hall, Boston, in 1857: 
"We thank thee, oh, Father, for this atom of spirit, a par- 
ticle from thine own flame of eternity which thou hast 
lodged in this clay." (" Bible of the Ages," p. ^22.) 

"A strain of gentle music," says Charles Dickens — 
" or the rippling of water in a silent place, or the odor of a 
flower, or even the mention of a familiar word, will some- 
times call up sudden dim remembrances of scenes that 
never were in this life j which vanish like a breath ; which 
some brief memory of a happier existence, long gone by, 
seemed to have awakened." 

Poets in their more inspired moments often sing of pre- 
existence : 

" I have dreamed 
Of sinless men and maids, mated in heaven 
Ere yet their souls had sought for beauteous forms 
To give them human sense and residence." 

— Holland. 

" And in the spheral chime they listening heard 

The soul's high destiny, which, being sunk 

Into this fleeting life, through obscure paths 

Must wander, fighting still a Godlike fight — 

Victor, through death ! " 

— SCHELLING. 

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting ;' 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Has had elsewhere its setting, 
And cometh from afar, 
Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory, do we come 
From God, who is our home." 

*— Wordsworth. 



Nature and Preexistence of the Soul 343 

As a fitting close to this essay, I quote from Schiller's 
" Mystery of Reminiscence," which is a surpassing poem 
of the soul's recognition : 

" Were once our beings blent and intertwining 
And for that glory still my heart is pining ; 
Knew we the light of some refulgent sun 
When once our souls were one ? 

" Round us in waters of delight forever 
Ravishingly flowed the heavenly nectar river ; 
We were the masters of the seal of things 
And where truth in her ever living springs 
Quivered our glancing wings. 



«« Weep for the godlike life we lost afar 
That thou and I its scattered fragments are : 
And still the unconquered yearning we retain, 
Sigh to renew the long and vanished reign 
And grow divine again." 

The foregoing was placed in W. J. Colville's hands by 
Dr. J. M. Peebles March 6, 1906, during a delightful visit 
to Battle Creek in the course of which W. J. Colville ex- 
pressed an earnest desire to embody in this volume some 
statement of conviction or confession of faith from one of 
the most highly venerated, widely traveled, richly educated 
and generous-hearted Spiritualists in the world. The 
career of Dr. J. M. Peebles is known and honored the wide 
world over. At the ripe age of eighty- five years we found 
this stalwart veteran hale, hearty, energetic and brimming 
over with good will and resolute determination to still fur- 
ther continue his work and travel in the interest of the 



344 



Universal Spiritualism 



great cause to which he has nobly devoted his unusually 
long and singularly useful life. Blessed by such advocates 
as the veteran " Pilgrim," the advocacy of Spiritualism is 
indeed secure. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

CONCLUSION—STRIKING INCIDENTS RE- 
LATED BY WELL-KNOWN WITNESSES 

In submitting to our readers such startling incidents as 
the following we make no claims whatever for the narra- 
tives, which are simply inserted at the close of this volume 
as contributions from the highly respectable narrators who 
vouch for what they describe over their respective signa- 
tures. All honest testimony deserves consideration. 

New York City, March zo, igo6. 
Mr. W. J. Colville, 

Care of Banner of Light, 

Boston, Mass. 

My dear Mr. Colville : — Having read your request for 
authenticated evidences of Spirit-communion in the 
Banner of Light of recent date, I take great pleasure in 
sending you herewith a few of our many experiences, and 
to assure you that you may make such use of this letter 
and its contents as you may see fit, using my name in full. 
Our small circle awaits with eagerness the publication of 
your book, to which we have had the pleasure to be among 
the earliest subscribers. 

To those who may doubt the truth of the statements 
made below, I wish to say that if they will apply their 
time and money to the investigation of these and kindred 
phenomena with as much liberality as they devote to 
purely material pleasures, devoid of any mental, moral or 
spiritual advantage, they will find the truth of the purpose 
of a more spiritual than material life and truths and 
marvels much greater and purer, than are contained in any 

345 



346 Universal Spiritualism 

system of theology or philosophy. I simply state facts 
and leave it to the reader to make his own deductions. 

With best wishes for your welfare and an enthusiastic 
reception of your book, 1 have the honor to remain, 

Yours very sincerely, 

Dr. V. von Unruh. 



Materialization 

Two seances were held at our own house with two well 
known media. There being present our little circle, 
consisting of my friend, Dr. H. and his wife, my wife, 
myself and my wife's sister, who were all well known to 
the media, no strange influence was expected to disturb 
the phenomena. 

The remarkable incidents worthy to be mentioned were 
the following : I was called in front of the improvised 
cabinet by the medium and saw his wife seated in a chair 
inside the cabinet in a deep trance. Around her feet 
there were two distinct accumulations of what seemed to 
be lace, interwoven with sparkling lights, and presently 
growing larger, stouter and taller until suddenly they were 
lifted up as if by invisible hands, and assumed the shape 
of a toga, within which I beheld at the same moment the 
shape and figure of a man and a woman, who then stepped 
out of the cabinet. This all was done by the light of a 
small red photographer's lamp, which we always use dur- 
ing our seances and which gives light enough to dis- 
tinguish the pattern of the wall paper eight feet distant. 
Then there appeared a form, strange to us, who swinging 
her hands and arms above and around her head and 
occasionally rubbing the palms of her hands together, 
began in this way to weave out of the air a piece of lace, 



Conclusion 347 

increasing in size every moment until it was about six by 
eight feet square. We were then told to grasp it at the 
margin and span it tightly across the space between the 
cabinet and our semicircle in front of it. Then slowly we 
let go of the lace which the spirit gathered in in the same 
manner as described before, and finally showed us her 
empty hands. We were anxious to retain a piece of such 
lace and asked for it ; but were told that such lace made 
out of the air would soon disintegrate, yet if the spirit 
were given some silken fabric she would take out of it 
one thread and make a piece of lace which would keep 
forever. I gave the spirit my necktie from which she took 
one thread, still standing outside of the cabinet and began 
the same manipulations as before and after about thirty 
seconds handed back my necktie within which was en- 
closed a piece of lace, which is still in my possession, 
mounted between two slabs of glass. That there are 
spirits who lack the politeness of better-bred earth folk 
was also shown us at this seance. The medium outside 
of the cabinet received a sudden slap in the face, which was 
audible as a loud handclap all over the room ; we did not 
know what to think of it until the medium said, some foolish 
spirit had slapped him in the face, but that he took such 
things good-naturedly, because resenting had done no good 
in the past and the evil-doer always apologized stante pede ; 
but as the medium's spectacles had been broken I thought 
that such pranks were altogether out of place. Then we 
witnessed several materializations and dematerializations 
outside of the cabinet. In the seance room then appeared 
directly at our feet a small cloud of light, dangling and 
dancing as it were, on the carpet, then around that cloud 
the luminous and sparkling lace and the two uniting fold- 



348 Universal Spiritualism 

ing over a form in less than half a minute. After greeting 
and a few private remarks the spirit, claiming to be that 
of my friend's mother, stepped back about two feet and 
collapsed, her feet disappearing first and her head bowing 
down forward touching the carpet after which all disap- 
peared into nothingness. — An Indian, "Little Eagle Eye" 
who came to me at every seance told me, that he would 
like to have a pair of moccasins to take them to spirit- 
land. I bought a pair and wrote on the sole of each 
moccasin "Little Eagle Eye" in ink which at writing 
showed up blue, but which turned black after a day or 
two. I gave them to him at this seance, four days after. 
When he appeared he said to me, "What you got for 
me? Me know, me see you write my name on them, 
blue like war paint." He at once put them on, and when 
he dematerialized they also disappeared and I have never 
seen them since. On a subsequent occasion I asked him 
what he had done with the moccasins, he replied that he 
had taken them to spirit-land.-— There also appeared for 
me a man, wearing a high cone-shaped hat which was so 
illuminated as to dazzle one. He said he was "Pardee," 
lived under the second Egyptian dynasty and came to tell 
me that he was my musical guide. In this connection I 
wish to narrate what will be to Non-Spiritualists a very 
remarkable incident. A young gentleman acquaintance 
who came to dine with us one evening, fully a year after 
the aforementioned seance, and for whose entertainment I 
was playing the piano, turned suddenly to me and said: 
"Do you know anybody by the name of Pardee? I see 
him standing by you and he turns to me and says : I am 
Pardee, — and then he points with his hand towards you." 
We had not seen this young man for more than a year and 



Conclusion 349 

by no possibility could he have known of the aforemen- 
tioned seance or the name of Pardee. This did not 
astonish us, as we knew the young man to be a clairvoyant. 
This could not have been Telepathy, for the young man's 
description of the appearance of the spirit agreed with our 
knowledge of the materialized spirit Pardee. — I must re- 
late one more incident that happened at our seance. 
" Lucy," the guide of the medium came out of the cabinet 
first as usual and then disappeared for quite a long while, 
perhaps twenty minutes. When she appeared again she 
said, "Friends, I must tell you something very funny; I 
have just been over to Mr. X's house in Brooklyn, where 
they were getting ready to begin their seance \ when the 
medium in the cabinet was about to seat himself in his 
chair he tripped and fell on the floor and all the sitters 
were laughing." Lucy herself seemed to be quite amused. 
The next morning my telephone rang and the unfortunate 
medium asked me whether Lucy had told us about it and 
I answered that she had. He then said that his fall had 
been a quite painful one and that he had difficulty in 
walking. 

Apport 

For the benefit of those, who distrust professional 
mediums, I will give an account of one of our own family- 
sittings, composed of myself and wife, our two children, 
aged ten and eleven, and my friend and his wife, all liv- 
ing under the same roof. On December 31, 1905 (Sun- 
day), we held our usual weekly seance. Soon after the 
beginning of our seance I felt something touching my hair 
and mentioned this. A few minutes after my forehead was 
touched by a small, hard object, which instantly dropped 



35° Universal Spiritualism 

on the glass cover of the music box in front of me. On 
examination we found it to be a genuine case of apport, 
the object being a solid gold cross in the form of an 
Egyptian crux ansata, surmounted by an Ibis. The 
dimensions of this object are about two inches in height 
and one inch in breadth. 

V. von Unruh. 

New York City, March io, /god. 
8j? Lexington Ave. 

Dr. von Unruh is a dentist established in New York 
many years with a large and influential practice. 



A Spirit has Her Portrait Painted 

When my book, " In the World Celestial," was in press 
I met the heroine of it, Pearl, at a seance. She assured 
me that the scenes and conditions of the spirit world, as 
described in the book were substantially correct, and that 
the story as a whole, is true to life. I said to her, " My 
dear Pearl, I should very much like to have a portrait of 
you for the book." She replied, " I will try to have one 
painted for you." She did not succeed, however, in get- 
ting a satisfactory likeness until the fourth edition of the 
book was about to be issued. On the evening of Jan- 
uary 25, 1905, Pearl met me at a trumpet seance 
and made an appointment with me to meet her at the 
home of two sisters, famous psychics, the next day, where 
she felt confident we would succeed in getting a portrait 
of her. My wife went with me to that appointment, and 
will sustain the statement of facts I herewith submit. 
The two sisters and ourselves entered the seance room, 



Conclusion 351 

at three o'clock in the afternoon. I selected from a 
number of others an artist's canvas on a stretcher, twenty 
by twenty-four inches, which was placed in front of a 
south window, through which the sun was shining. One 
of the sisters seated herself on one side, and the other on 
the other side of the window, and each grasped the edge 
of the stretcher next to her with one hand. My wife and 
I seated ourselves immediately in front, and within easy 
reach of the canvas. We kept our eyes steadily fixed 
upon it to carefully witness any phenomena that might be 
presented. In about three minutes a cloud passed over 
the canvas and settled upon it, forming a pearl gray 
background for the picture. A few minutes later the 
outlines of a form appeared. This grew gradually more 
distinct until in about forty minutes, from the time we 
had taken our seats, the picture was complete. It was the 
portrait of a beautiful woman, in the full bloom of mature 
womanhood, with golden hair and blue eyes, a perfect 
blonde. I had known Pearl when she was a girl, and 
this portrait bears a striking resemblance to her as I 
remember her. I have met her at seances since, and she 
has assured me that the portrait is a correct likeness of 
her, as she appears in her present development. I had 
her picture reproduced for the fourth edition of my book, 
in the style known as photogravure, a new process by 
which photographs are made direct from the negative 
on white plate paper. 

This experience settles the matter, with us, that spirits 
can have their portraits painted, by some occult process 
which is beyond the ken of mortal artists. Art critics 
who have seen this picture pronounce it above criticism 
as a work of art, and they are puzzled to know by what 



35 2 Universal Spiritualism 

process it could have been produced, as it is different 
from any style of painting with which they are familiar. 

T. A. Bland. 

Dr. Bland is Secretary of the American Medical Union. 
Address, 231 Hayne Ave., Chicago. 

Oneonta, N. Y., March gth, 1906. 
The soul-inspiring truths of Spirit-return, wafted on 
the wings of love after the transition of my dearly beloved 
mother Julia Pond, have been a well-spring of joy to us. 
Being isolated from all people of this cult, and never 
having been in sympathy with the thought of Spirit- 
return, not having read any literature of that nature ; my 
experiences have been phenomenal, first conceiving it 
imaginary, subsequently developing clairaudience. We 
feared dementia, not consulting a physician, but pros- 
trated for several weeks, after which unconscious entrance- 
ment, when my husband apprehended death (as we inter- 
preted transition). After a hard struggle, the vision was 
made clear, highly developed instructors were brought, 
embellishing me with gifts which I of myself have never 
sought. Singing in all voices where mortal voice of its 
own volition has never reached. Instruments coming 
through the vocal organs, also inspired writings. These 
manifestations proving to us the continuity of life, and 
the thin veil between the two worlds interpenetrating 
each other's lives like one great family. This innovation 
in our lives has been an education as well as inspiration 
to reach out after the aggrandizing truths which are 
given us through the realm of Spirit. 

Rose B. Helm. 



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